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SELECTIONS 

FROM 

AMERICAN POETRY 



Edited by 

CHARLES ROBERT GASTON, Ph. D m IN- 
STRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, RICHMOND 
HILL HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY 



JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, Ph. D., FORM- 
ERLY PRINCIPAL OF THE BERKELEY 
INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



PS 586 



Copyright, 1908, 1909, 1913 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL C0 



©CLA357942 



CONTENTS 

PART ONE 
Introduction: page 

Biographies of Poe, Longfellow, Whittier ... 7 

Critical Comments 27 

Poe: The Raven 37 

Longfellow: The Courtship of Miles Standish , . . 47 

Whittier: Snow-Bound 129 

Notes and Questions 161 

PART TWO 

Introduction : 

Biography of Lowell . . 7 

Critical Comments . . 22 

Lowell: The Vision of Sir Launfal 41 

Lowell: Selected Poems 59 

Notes and Questions 135 

PART THREE 

Bryant: Selected Poems 5 

Emerson: Selected Poems 21 

Holmes: Selected Poems 39 

Whitman: Selected Poems 55 

List of Poems for Supplementary Reading . . .75 



m 




EDGAB ALLAN POE 
From an old daguerreotype 



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THE RAVEN 

By EDGAR ALLAN POE 

THE COURTSHIP OF 
MILES STANDISH 

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

SNOW-BOUND 

By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND 
NOTES BY CHARLES ROBERT GASTON 
PH.D., INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, RICHMOND 
HILL HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



FSS86 



Copyright, 1909 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



3n memory of 
GEORGE R. CARPENTER 

THE PRECISE RHETORICIAN, THE CULTURED 

CRITIC OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

THE MAN OF BROAD 

SYMPATHIES 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
f^txxi\V& diilus* Ct^td 

This series of books will include in complete editions 
those masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted 
for the use of schools and colleges. The editors of the 
several volumes will be chosen for their special qualifications 
in connection with the texts to be issued under their indi- 
vidual supervision, but familiarity with the practical needs 
of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, will char- 
acterize the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and historical 
introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author and 
his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of 
the work in question chosen from the great body of English 
criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author, will 
be given. Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the 
text as call for special attention will be supplied, but irrel- 
evant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be 
rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction : 



Life of Poe 7 

Life of Longfellow 12 

Life of Whittier 20 

Critical Comments: 

Poe, Longfellow, and Whittier 27 

Edgar Allan Poe 28 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 30 

John Greenleaf Whittier 32 

Poems: 

The Raven 37 

The Courtship of Miles Standish 47 

Snow-Bound 129 

Notes: 

The Raven 161 

The Courtship of Miles Standish 166 

Snow-Bound 179 

Examination Questions: 

The Raven 193 

The Courtship of Miles Standish 194 

Snow-Bound . 195 



INTRODUCTION 

LIFE OF POE, 1809-1849 

The Edgar Allan Poe School of English is one of the 
six departments of the University of Virginia. Though 
Poe disgraced the University while he was in attendance, 
his subsequent literary works have brought him such 
fame that he is now known as Virginia's most distinguished 
student. This change in the attitude of his alma mater 
toward him is similar to the change in the attitude of 
the world toward so erratic a genius. Poe has been 
reviled as an atheist, a sot, and a wife-deserter; he has 
been condemned as a writer possessed of no great message 
that is worthy of long remembrance, but skilled only in 
a limited, morbid field of mechanically excellent verse 
and of ingenious but shallow prose. On the other hand, 
he has been latterly praised as a good man, to be pitied 
for his high-strung temperament and his one failing of 
fondness for drink, and as the greatest American writer 
in both poetry and prose. The reason for these widely 
varying estimates is that Poe lived romantically and 
abnormally from the beginning to the end of his forty 
variegated years. The proper estimate of his life as a 
man and his worth as a writer no doubt lies between the 
two extremes. It is certain that he drank to excess, but 
it is equally certain that he supported his wife faithfully 
to the best of his ability. Nearly all the critics now assign 
to him high rank as the possessor of a brilliant intellect, 
as the creator of the detective story type, and as the author 
of a wonderfully fascinating, mysterious poem, "The 

7 



S INTRODUCTION 

Raven." If we depart somewhat from the grouping of 
even the best biographer of Poe, i.e., George E. Wood- 
berry, we may get the clearest idea of Poe's life by tracing 
it in two periods. The first period, from 1809 to 1831, 
started him in literature as a profession. The second 
period, from 1831 to 1849, was devoted entirely to writing 
and editorial work. It was during his second period that 
he composed "The Raven." 

His mother, an actress, was, at the time of his birth, 
January 19, 1809, filling an engagement in Boston. His 
father, David Poe, a native of Baltimore, had ceased the 
practice of law and become a mediocre actor. At the 
age of two, Poe, left an orphan, was adopted by John 
Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. Though not able to understand the moods and 
peculiarities of his adopted son, Mr. Allan gave Poe oppor- 
tunities for a good education. From the age of six to 
eleven he was in Europe, two years being spent in school 
at a London suburb, Stoke Newington. His story "Wil- 
liam Wilson" relates his Stoke Newington memories. 
Then he lived for six years in luxury in the large red 
brick house which was the home of his foster parents in 
Richmond. Among the boys of his own age, he was 
a clever boxer, a strong swimmer, a swift runner, and a 
good jumper, a broad jump of twenty-one feet, six inches, 
with a running start of twenty yards, being his best record; 
but his aristocratic Richmond companions made the proud 
boy feel an outcast by reminding him that his parents 
had been strolling players. 

In 1826 he entered the University of Virginia, at Char- 
lottesville. Here he roomed first on the lawn with a 
Richmond boy, but, having a fist fight with him, ending 
in friendship but separation as room-mates, Poe moved 
to No. 13, West Range. He used to take long solitary 
walks in the mountains, but was also a leader in hilarious 
drinking and card-playing, which involved him in such 



INTRODUCTION 9 

debt that Allan removed him from the University at the 
end of a year and put him to work in his counting-room. 
Chafing under the restraint of a steady life, he ran away 
to Boston, where in 1827 he obtained a publisher for an 
anonymous volume of verse, Tamerlane and Oilier Poems. 
and two years later another volume, containing his name 
o.i the title page, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 
was published in Baltimore. Meanwhile he served in 
the army creditably for two years, after which his foster 
parent obtained for him a West Point cadetship. He 
entered the Academy in July, 1830, but, disliking the 
discipline, he deliberately set out to get himself discharged, 
which he easily accomplished; he was court-martialed 
and dismissed in March, 1831. Without hope of any 
further aid from the rich Mr. Allan, he was now left to 
make his own way by literature. 

From 1831 to his death in 1849, Poe was a hack writer, 
who fortunately turned out some great literature. During 
these eighteen years he was employed on numerous 
papers and magazines as editor and contributor. When- 
ever he obtained a regular editorial position, Poe chafed 
under the restraint, just as he had done in his youth in 
business and in West Point; yet, driven by necessity, he 
worked conscientiously to hold his positions. He obtained 
his first editorship, that of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
published in Richmond, through the reputation that came 
to him from his one hundred dollar prize story, " A Ms. 
Found in a Bottle," printed in a Baltimore paper. In 
1836 he was married to Virginia Clemm, a fourteen-year- 
old Baltimore cousin of his. Leaving Richmond, he was 
for five years employed in editorial work in Philadelphia 
on The Gentleman's Magazine and on Graham's Magazine. 
Then in 1842 he moved to New York, working there for 
The Evening Mirror and The Broadway Journal. 

While he was employed editorially on the magazines 
and newspapers named, he contributed to these and other 



10 INTRODUCTION 

papers many critical essays, short stories, and short poems. 
Among his short stories of mystery and analytical power 
are "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Masque of 
the Red Death," "Marie Roget," "Ligeia," "The Black 
Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Fall of the 
House of Usher," and "The Gold Bug," one of the best 
short stories in the English language. In his stories he 
shows no particular power in character-drawing, but in 
supernatural weirdness and horror he is unsurpassed. 
His critical articles on the literary men of New York and 
on the poets and poetry of America aroused much bitter 
feeling, as in the case of his strictures on the poet Rufus 
W. Griswold, who had been his friend, but who was so 
irritated by Poe's criticisms that in his biography of 
Poe he seems to have set out to get even by making untrue 
or exaggerated statements. In one of his critical works, 
Poe attacked Longfellow as a plagiarist, and condemned 
the didactic tone of his earlier poetry, though he acknowl- 
edged that Longfellow's poetry possessed some excellent 
traits. Yet Poe was the first well-known critic to point 
out the genius of the shy young novelist Hawthorne. A 
very ingenious general critical study by Poe is the one 
entitled, "The Philosophy of Composition," which pur- 
ports to explain the method used in the writing of "The 
Raven." Among Poe's poems are "To Helen, "To One 
in Paradise," " Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," "To My 
Mother," "The Haunted Palace," "The City in the Sea," 
"Lenore," "Dreamland," "Israfel," "The Conqueror 
Worm," "The Bells," and "The Raven." 

In "The Raven," his most popular poem, there are hints 
of the style of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Yet Poe's 
own style is distinct and individual. He had a natural 
perception of beauty, a finely rhythmical sense. His 
technical mastery of verse was wonderful. He took the 
greatest pains to perfect the form of his poetry. He was 
always conscientious and sincere, but was limited in. his 



INTRODUCTION 11 

range. He does not treat of the universal themes which 
are at the basis of the great works of such poets as Milton 
and Wordsworth. The theme of "The Raven/' for 
instance, is merely the resistless disaster of a man's des- 
tiny. The poem is extraordinarily vivid, yet it leaves 
such indistinct pictures in the mind that artists have the 
greatest difficulty in illustrating it. It has such a metrical 
charm that, like "The Bells/' it is a favorite of elocu- 
tionists. 

"The Raven " was originally published in the New 
York Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845, copied from ad- 
vance sheets of The American Whig Review for February, I 
1845. It appeared also in the New York Broadway 
Journal, February 8, 1845, and, revised, in the edition of 
Poe's poems published in 1845 by Wiley and Putnam, 
161 Broadway, New York. In the copy of the 1845 
edition, called the Lorimer Graham copy, Poe made 
marginal corrections which are recorded by Woodberry 
and Stedman in their edition. 

There are conflicting stories concerning the time and 
the circumstances of the composition of the poem. In ■ 
1842, Poe, then at Saratoga Springs, is said to have men- 
tioned the poem to a lady who had been a contributor 
to the Evening Mirror. Next summer he showed her a 
draft of the poem. Another story is that he offered the 
poem in the office of George R. Graham and received 
fifteen dollars for it to aid his starving wife. Still another • 
story is that he composed the poem after ten o'clock one 
evening in order to secure medicine for his sick wife. 
Again, it is said that he composed the poem one day and 
then declaimed it as was his custom in the hearing of boon 
companions in a New York tavern when he was drunk. 
One more story is that he composed the poem stanza by 
stanza, accepting the criticisms made by his friends. 
W. F. Gill, in his biography, says that Poe wrote the poem 
in the winter of 1844 in a plain, old-fashioned frame house 



12 INTRODUCTION 

near the corner of Eighty-fourth Street and the Boule- 
vard Avenue, where he and his wife and his wife's mother 
were then boarding. 

All these stories of the time and the circumstances of 
the writing of " The Raven " give a lively idea of the strug- 
gling years of the poor journalist in New York. He had 
hard work to earn enough to support his family. Occa- 
sionally he broke the bounds of sobriety and made it still 
harder to gain sustenance. Some of those who worked 
in the editorial offices with him report that he was uni- 
formly courteous and for long periods steady. He lived 
from 1844 to 1849 in Kingsbridge Road, Fordham, New 
York, in a cottage preserved now as a Poe museum. 
In 1847 his wife died. Two years later in the city of 
Baltimore he was found insensible in the street, was taken 
to a hospital, and there died on October 7, 1849. 

So much seems clear regarding the life of an author 
whose actions have been the subject of endless con- 
troversy. In conclusion it is sufficient to say that the 
centenary of his birth was marked by enthusiastic gather- 
ings in the various large cities of. the United States to do 
honor to his genius as one of the foremost of American 
writers. 

LIFE OF LONGFELLOW, 1807-1882 

In the same way in which many Englishmen get their 
history from Shakespeare's plays, many Americans learn 
theirs from Longfellow's poems. Americans' ideas of 
New England colonial life are, for example, largely ob- 
tained from Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish, 
rather than from the authentic old chronicles or the 
modern histories. As Shakespeare used the facts to suit 
himself, so did Longfellow. Longfellow has been as much 
admired and praised in the United States as Shakespeare 
in England. Longfellow has for two generations been the 
most popular American poet. His poetry has been thus 



INTRODUCTION 13 

extraordinarily popular because it appeals most to simple 
tastes that demand concreteness and sympathy in the 
literature which they praise; and yet it appeals also to 
the heart of the most cultured scholars. His life was so 
simple and his character was so amiable that every one 
who knew anything about him — and every one knew 
something about him — loved him as if he w T ere a per- 
sonal friend. The simple, tranquil life of this represent- 
ative of the best American ideals of his age, as related in 
the authoritative biography, that by Samuel Longfellow 
published in 1891 in three volumes, is interesting in spite 
of its normal, not to say commonplace, happiness. For 
almost fifty years (from 1807 to 1854), Longfellow lived 
a scholar's life, and then for nearly thirty years (from 
1854 to 1882), he lived as a poet and man of letters. His 
Courtship of Miles Standish was written and published 
during this second period of his life. 

In many schools, the twenty-seventh of February is 
known as Longfellow day, for that was the birthday of 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1807 at Portland, Maine. 
He was the son of a lawyer who could trace his ancestry 
back for more than a hundred and fifty years to an Ed- 
ward Longfellow, of Horsforth, England, through a line 
of sturdy and mostly prosperous colonists — blacksmiths, 
schoolmasters, judges. His mother's father was General 
Peleg Wadsworth, a Revolutionary soldier of distinction; 
his mother w T as a descendant of Priscilla Alden. Long- 
fellow was named after Henry, one of the brothers of his 
mother, and was given also the family name, Wadsworth. 
At General Wads worth's home, which was the first brick 
house built in Portland, and which is still standing (ad- 
mission twenty-five cents), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
spent his boyhood. His delight in the childhood life in 
Portland is evident in his poem, "My Lost Youth." He 
had plenty of books to read in his father's library — the 
poems of Milton, Pope, Dryden, Cowper, Moore; Don 



14 INTRODUCTION 

Quixote and the successive numbers of Irving 's Sketch- 
Book, which began to appear in 1819. He did not read, 
like Poe, the poems of Shelley, Keats, and Byron, the 
passionate romanticists of the early nineteenth century. 
At the private schools which he attended he is spoken of 
as a handsome schoolboy, thoughtful but not melan- 
choly; not averse to the quieter sports, but more fond of 
a book under the trees. His home life was idyllic in its 
charm. At the age of thirteen the boy was made happy 
by seeing his first poem printed anonymously in the Port- 
land Gazette. 

When he was fifteen he entered Bowdoin College, at 
Brunswick, Maine. Probably the reason why he did not 
go to his father 's college, Harvard, was that his father 
was a trustee of Bowdoin, which had been opened in 1802. 
At Bowdoin he knew Hawthorne and Franklin Pierce. 
His college life simply continued the training he had 
received at home and in the private schools. He studied 
faithfully the mathematics, natural sciences, and phi- 
losophy of the course. From his study of the classics and 
his reading in the college library he acquired a perspicu- 
o.us but balanced English prose style. While at Bow- 
doin he wrote verses for the newspapers ; fourteen of these 
were published the year after his graduation in a volume 
entitled Miscellaneous Poems selected from the United 
States Literary Gazette. Of these the best known is " Hymn 
of the Moravian Nuns." He finished his course at the 
age of eighteen, and was asked to go abroad to prepare 
himself for a Bowdoin professorship of modern languages. 
His father allowed him six hundred dollars a year for a 
three years' stay in Europe. 

Thirsting for the springs of old culture, reverently alert 
for impressions of European life, the young American 
scholar took passage for Havre. His youthful enjoyment 
of all that he saw and felt is evident on every page of the 
notes which he published several years after his return. 



INTRODUCTION . 15 

The extent of his travels is indicated by a sentence from 
the early part of his book : — 

" In this my pilgrimage, * I have passed many lands and 
countries, and searched many full strange places/ I 
have traversed France from Normandy to Navarre; 
smoked my pipe in a Flemish inn; floated through Hol- 
land in a Trekschuit; trimmed my midnight lamp in a 
German university ; wandered and mused amid the classic 
scenes of Italy; and listened to the gay guitar and merry 
Castanet on the borders of the blue Guadalquivir." (From 
Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea.) A character- 
istic passage showing how he relished his European travel 
is this: "My recollections of Spain are of the most 
lively and. delightful kind. The character of the soil and 
of its inhabitants, — the stormy mountains and free 
spirits of the North, — the prodigal luxuriance and gay 
voluptuousness of the South, — the history and tradi- 
tions of the past, resembling more the fables of romance 
than the solemn chronicle of events, — a soft and yet 
majestic language that falls like martial music on the 
ear, and a literature rich in the attractive lore of poetry 
and fiction, — these, but not these alone, are my remi- 
niscences of Spain." 

On his return to the United States, he took up at Bow- 
doin the wearing work of teaching, yet he entered upon it 
with enthusiasm in the belief that it would allow him time 
to write as he might be inclined. Instead of doing orig- 
inal work, however, he made text-books, excellent of 
their kind and for their purpose. He edited French 
texts, translated a French grammar, and made French, 
Spanish, and Italian readers. His recitations and lec- 
tures he prepared for painstakingly. The students liked 
him; he enjoyed them. His influence during his six years 
of teaching at Bowdoin was of the best. Other colleges 
tried to secure his services, but he preferred Bowdoin until 
a call came to follow Ticknor in the chair of modern Ian- 



±6 INTRODUCTION 

guages at Harvard. Longfellow accepted and went 
abroad for further study, particularly of German, which 
he never cared for so much as the French and Spanish 
and Italian languages and literatures; in these he had 
already become extremely proficient. His acceptance of 
the Harvard professorship took him in the autumn of 
1836 to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, living for the 
remaining years of his life, he became a quiet but power- 
ful influence for widening culture, and where, having 
more time to himself than at .Bowdoin, he became the 
chief of the " Cambridge Poets." During his Harvard 
teaching he published several volumes of prose and 
poetry: Hyperion, a Romance, 1839; Voices of the Night, 
1839, which contained translations and nine original 
poems; Ballads, and Other Poems, 1841; Poems on Sla- 
very, 1842; The Spanish Student, a three-act play, 1843; 
The Belfry of Bruges, and Other Poems, 1845 ; Evangeline, 
1847; Kavanagh, a Tale, 1849; The Seaside and the Fire- 
side, 1819; and The Golden Legend, 1851. In the year 
1854, he was succeeded at Harvard by his friend James 
Russell Lowell. 

Thus far no mention has been made of Longfellow's 
domestic affairs. In 1831, at the age of twenty- two, he 
was married to Mary Storer Potter, of Portland. With 
her, for four years, he lived a contented, peaceful life. 
Mrs. Longfellow was beautiful in appearance, happy in 
disposition, and sympathetic and appreciative in her 
husband's intellectual work. The shock of her death in 
Holland while he was studying in preparation for his 
Harvard professorship changed Longfellow from a youth 
in spirit to a grown man. At Cambridge he took rooms 
in the Craigic House. This fine old colonial building is 
now pointed out to every Cambridge visitor as the Long- 
fellow home, for here Longfellow lived the rest of his life, 
except for summers on the New England coast and several 
European journeys. In the hero of Hyperion he had 



INTRODUCTION 17 

sketched his own bitterness of thought during the year 
following the death of his first wife, and in the heroine he 
had sketched the character of Miss Frances Appleton, 
who became in July, 1843, his second wife. At their 
marriage, Miss Apple ton's father bought for them the 
Craigie mansion. Here, for some years, their life was 
like the home life of the best New England families of 
the day — children at play, fireside reading, entertain- 
ments, calls, concerts, plays, enough work to keep the 
domestic delight from palling by monotony of idleness. 
In the year 1854 Longfellow and his wife decided that 
they could afford to live without his salary as professor, 
and he resigned. 

From 1854 till his death in 1882 Longfellow, relieved 
entirely from professional duties, did some of his best 
work as poet and man of letters. He continued to dream 
along in the peaceful existence already started at Cam- 
bridge, all the time growing in the affections of the people 
till the whole nation came to love him. Among the 
literary men of New England he was the dean. In the 
gatherings of the Saturday Club, which included Whittier, 
Emerson, Lowell, and Hawthorne among its members, 
Longfellow took particular joy. He was long a friend 
of Senator Charles Sumner. The young scholar Andrew 
D. White visited Longfellow in 1867 at his beautiful 
summer cottage at Nahant. In his Autobiography White 
speaks of Longfellow as "a most lovely being. " As they 
sat on the veranda looking out over the ocean and dis- 
cussing political events, the poet turned to the young 
scholar and statesman and said, "Mr. White, don't you 
think Horace Greeley a very useless sort of man?" The 
dreamy poet could not understand at all the point of 
view of the practical man of affairs, the great editor of the 
New York Tribune. Four years later White dined with 
the poet at his Cambridge home. The host enjoyed 
showing the places in this house that were connected 



18 INTRODUCTION 

with interesting passages in the life of Washington when 
he occupied the house. These details given by Dr. White 
in his recollections afford a characteristic glimpse of the 
life of the celebrated Cambridge man of letters in this 
period of poetic ease. 

In that curious back-hand of his, not so legible and 
print-like as Poe's handwriting, Longfellow produced in 
this second period enough original poetry, translation, and 
editorial work to make a small library. In narrative 
poetry he published The Song of Hiawatha, 1855, consid- 
ered by many critics his greatest achievement because it 
is the nearest approach to an American epic. Narrative 
also is The Courtship of Miles Standish, published in 
1858. This seems to me his greatest poem because it 
dwells with consummate poetical art upon a world-appre- 
ciated theme and because it gives with absolute faithful- 
ness the spirit of the early New England Puritanism. 
Tales cf a Wayside Inn, 1863, is a popular collection of 
local pictures and old-world stories in pleasing verse. 
His most ambitious production was published in 1872 
under the heading Christus, a Mystery; it consisted of 
three parts, " The Divine Tragedy/' " The Golden Legend," 
and "The New England Tragedies," and except for the 
second part, which had been already printed, is practi- 
cally unread among its author's works. His other prin- 
cipal volumes of poems are " Aftermath," "The Hanging 
of the Crane," "Masque of Pandora/' "Keramos," 
"Ultima Thule," and "In the Harbor." During this 
period he composed a group of sonnets which easily 
rank him as the chief American sonnet writer. The trans- 
lation of Dante's Divine Comedy, 1870, is the crowning 
achievement of the scholar, postponed till his time of 
ease. Though not in every respect a great translation 
of Dante's epic, it is true to the original and not lacking 
i:i Dante's poetic fire. Longfellow's editorial work in- 
cluded the editing of thirty-one volumes of Poem.s oj 



INTRODUCTION 19 

Places. Such was the extensive work of the man of letters 
in Cambridge, from 1854 to 1882, in original poetry, in 
translation, and in compilation. 

The life at Cambridge was not all happiness, for, eigh- 
teen years after his second marriage, his wife was burned 
so badly by the upturning of a candle on her dress that 
she soon died. Thereafter Longfellow lived in the Cam- 
bridge home with his children, the care and education of 
whom occupied his thoughts to the banishment of lone- 
liness. It was only when his distinguished friends died, 
one by one, that he began to feel the weight of his years. 
In March, 1882, he died, and was buried in Cambridge. 
The period of his life in Cambridge was, curiously enough, 
almost exactly the time of the supremacy of New England 
as a literary center. 

In the sketch of Longfellow's life, little mention has 
been made of specific short poems, such as " A Psalm of 
Life," "The Rainy Day " (written in the Portland home), 
"Excelsior," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Build- 
ing of the Ship," "The Village Blacksmith," and "Paul 
Revere 's Ride," which every schoolboy knows. It would 
have been superfluous to discuss these poems, for they 
have always appealed to the hearts of the American 
people and have done as much as the longer narrative 
poems to give their author his extraordinary popularity. 
But it was by such longer poems as The Courtship of 
Miles Standish that Longfellow established his claim to 
a place among the poets of world-wide appeal, and it 
was by such writing that he merited recognition in West- 
minster Abbey, the temple of fame for the English-speak- 
ing nations. There, two years after his death, a bust of 
Longfellow was placed, with ceremonies which testified 
to the esteem in which he is held by all who speak the 
English language. 



20 INTRODUCTION 

LIFE OF WHITTIER, 1807-1892 

In The Appreciation of Literature, George E. Wood- 
berry speaks of Whittier 's Snow-Bound, Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village, and Burns 's The Cotter's Saturday Night 
as imperishable monuments to that "home-feeling which 
is so profound an element in the character as well as the 
affections of English-speaking people the world over." 
Inevitably popular are the poets who express this home- 
feeling. Next to Longfellow, Whittier has come closer 
to the heart of the nation than any other American poet. 
Known everywhere as the household Quaker poet, he 
is celebrated also as the poet who did more than any other 
to crystallize northern sentiment against slavery. These 
two phases of his work seem contradictory, but when his 
life is read in such an interesting and discriminating 
biography as that by George R. Carpenter in the American 
Men of Letters series, the contradiction is found to be 
apparent and not real, for Whittier was a poet appealing 
all the time to the best instincts of his nation. His life 
may best be considered in three periods : the first including 
his boyhood and early efforts at literature; the second, 
his freedom work; and the third, his life as a mature, 
tranquil poet. It was in this third period that he wrote 
his greatest poem, Snow-Bound. 

The house where he was born on December 17, 1807, 
is one mile to the northeast of Haverhill, Essex County, 
Massachusetts, near Great Pond, known also as Lake 
Kenoza. This farmhouse is the scene of Snow-Bound and 
is now marked by a bronze tablet. Whittier 's great-great- 
grandfather built the house about 1688; Whittiers had 
lived there ever since, all of them substantial pioneers and 
farmers of good repute, all of them husbands of farmers' 
daughters. The great-grandfather married a Quakeress, 
whose religion he adopted. The grandfather married 
Sarah Greenleaf. The poet was given the name of his 



INTRODUCTION 21 

father and the family name of his grandmother. John 
Greenleaf Whittier started in life with a hundred and 
fifty years of New England independent struggle for 
existence back of him. In his youth he continued the 
struggle, but with a weaker body and more sensitive 
temperament than his ancestors possessed. He worked 
on the ancestral farm, with intermissions of shoe-making 
and academy attendance and school-teaching, until he 
was twenty-one. When he was nearly nineteen his first 
printed poem appeared in the Newburyport Free Press. 
Whittier had been led early to the writing of poetry by 
his reading of Burns, Gray, Cowper, Scott, and Mrs. 
Hemans ; then when he was disappointed in love he read 
Byron. All of his own early poetry was imitative of 
the poets whom he had read. The Newburyport paper 
was edited by William Lloyd Garrison who subsequently 
became the great anti-slavery agitator and who influ- 
enced Whittier in this direction. In 1828 Whittier wrote 
to Garrison a letter commending his views on slavery, 
intemperance, and war. 

Through Garrison 's recommendation, Whittier, then 
just of age, left the farm and became editor, at nine dollars 
a week, of The American Manufacturer, published in 
Boston. After seven months he was called home to 
Haverhill by the sickness of his father, who died the next 
year. During the interval Whittier worked the farm 
and edited the local paper. A month after his father's 
death he became editor of The New England Review, of 
Hartford, Connecticut. This position made him conver- 
sant with the political events of the time, brought him a 
wide friendship among editors, and a national reputation 
through the copying of his Hartford articles in other 
papers. In his leisure hours in Boston and Hartford 
"the gay young Quaker'' read much in the best English 
fiction and poetry. His first book, Legends of New Eng- 
land, exhibiting a little of the weirdness later character- 



22 INTRODUCTION 

istic of Poe, was published in Hartford in 1831. Shortly 
after his return, in poor health, to Haverhill, he wrote to 
a friend that he had done with poetry and literature, and 
would now be a farmer. Yet he hankered for an election 
to Congress and might perhaps have secured it, through 
the confidence his neighbors had in his shrewdness and 
the esteem in which they held him because of his Boston 
and Hartford editorships, had he not definitely allied 
himself in 1833 with the abolitionist movement. Thus 
far, from his youthful prose and poetry, he had gained a 
reputation in literature second to none of his contempo- 
raries, in spite of which nothing which he early wrote is 
at the present time much read. Now began the second 
period of his life. 

As a reformer, from 1833 to 1860, striving with Quaker 
intensity to uphold the principle of the equality of man, 
Whittier won the respect of the nation and the hootings 
of particular crowds. This was the time of his greatest 
effort in life ; in these years he accomplished what he con- 
sidered to be his most valuable service to his country. 
Not literature, but abolition, was his chief interest. Yet, 
since slavery is no more, we are now concerned rather with 
Whittier 's literary life than with his life as a reformer 
and so must pass quickly over this second phase of his 
career. In June, 1833, influenced by the appeals of his 
friend Garrison to throw his influence into the cause of 
abolition, he published, at his own expense, a pamphlet 
entitled, " Justice and Expediency: or, Slavery Con- 
sidered with a View to Its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, 
Abolition." This pamphlet illustrates Whittier 's part in 
the abolition movement; he continued for more than 
twenty-five years to write essays and poems aiming to 
appeal to the reason and to bring about the abolition of 
slavery by public opinion as expressed by votes. He 
was one of the secretaries of the first national anti-slavery 
convention in Philadelphia and signed its declaration. In 



INTRODUCTION 23 

1835 he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature. 
In Concord, New Hampshire, he was mobbed in company 
with George Thompson, the English anti-slavery agitator. 
He kept Thompson, whose life was in danger, hidden 
for two weeks in the farmhouse. Soon after, during the 
rioting by a mob in Washington Street, Boston, Whittier 
was threatened with personal violence. A little later 
he was in New York for several months in the office of 
the American anti-slavery society, and almost became 
engaged to a young lady of Brooklyn. In 1838, when he 
was in Philadelphia editing the Pennsylvania Freeman, 
his office was sacked and burned by a mob, but he saved 
some of his belongings by disguising himself in a long 
white coat and a wig so that he could mingle with the mob 
without being known. He kept on editing the paper 
till his health failed. 

Then he took up his residence with his mother, aunt, 
and younger sister, Elizabeth, in Amesbury, eight miles 
from his birthplace, in a house which is now maintained 
as a memorial of the poet. Here his mother died in 1858. 
He edited at Lowell, Massachusetts, The Middlesex Stand- 
ard in 1844, and in 1847 became corresponding editor of 
The National Era, published at Washington. In 1849 he 
received five hundred dollars for the copyright of all his 
verse thus far published. Next year, he met James T. 
Fields, the friend of all the New England poets, and here- 
after his poems were published by Ticknor and Fields. 
In 1857 this firm brought out his collected poems. In 
spite of his numerous reform articles and poems, includ- 
ing the famous poem "Ichabod" and the volumes en- 
titled Voices of Freedom and Songs of Labor, in spite of 
his five prose volumes containing wonderfully keen essays 
analyzing and depicting early New England life and 
character, and in spite of a number of poems of national 
reputation, such as "The Barefoot Boy," " Skipper 
Ireson's Ride/' and "Maud Muller," written from 1833 



24 INTRODUCTION 

to 1SG0, he would hardly be assured a permanent place 
among the best American poets, if he had not in the 
maturity of his years returned to the themes of his boy- 
hood and written one imperishable poem on the New 
England life as he knew it when he was a boy. 

Since Whittier was a reformer, with his soul on fire for 
the abolition of slavery, it might be thought that a fitting 
end to the second period of his life would be the end of the 
war rather than the beginning. But no! As a Quaker, 
Whittier had a horror of war; he sympathized with the 
North, but he believed it would be better to let the 
South go rather than to fight. Thus he turned from his 
one absorbing great passion, his contention for freedom, to 
a tranquil life as a poet, a period of thirty-two years (from 
I860 to 1892), in no part of which because of ill health 
was he able to do a full day's work and in most of which 
he found it impossible to read or write for more than a 
half-hour at a time. In these years he grew steadily in 
the affections of the people. During the war his verses 
were cries of those who were bereaved and prayers for 
God to let the right be done. Some of his songs were 
sung by the northern soldiers, President Lincoln saying 
that he wanted the soldiers to hear such songs as Whit- 
tier's. His ballad of " Barbara Frietchie" and his "Laus 
Deo " are his best known poems produced in war times. 

After the war he wrote a number of religious poems 
which appear in collections of hymns sung by various 
denominations. "I have been a member of the Society 
of Friends by birthright and by a settled conviction of 
the truth of its principles and the importance of its testi- 
monies, while, at the same time, I have a kind feeling 
towards all who are seeking, in different ways from mine, 
to serve God and benefit their fellow-men." Thus Whittier 
wrote regarding his religious faith. It was this breadth 
of sympathy that made his religious songs acceptable to 
all true worshipers. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

Snow-Bound, which he says he wrote to beguile the 
weariness of a sick-room, at once became one of the " best 
sellers" of the day. From the time of its publication in 
1866, the surprising profits from its sale made Whittier 
a well-to-do man. Among the other poems of this period 
are "The Maids of Attitash," "Among the Hills/' "Amy 
Wentworth," "My Playmate/' "The Henchman/' and 
"Sea Dream." But Snow-Bound is the poem on which 
Whittier 's fame as a poet most securely rests. 

After the death of his sister, in 1864, his brother's 
daughter, Elizabeth Whittier, kept house for him at 
Amesbury until her marriage in 1876 to S. T. Pickard, 
who became his biographer. Whittier continued to vote 
at Amesbury, but spent much of his time with his 
cousins, the Misses Johnson, at Oak Knoll, Dan vers, 
Massachusetts. At Amesbury, this kindly old bachelor, 
famous as he was, used to like to sit in the shop of the vil- 
lage tailor and talk with his neighbors. Occasionally he 
traveled to Boston to see his publishers and enjoy an 
evening with the Saturday Club, to which Longfellow 
also belonged. He spent his summers on Lake Winne- 
pesaukee or at the Isles of Shoals or at Amesbury. The 
life all the year was easier and quieter than in earlier 
days. He wrote when he felt inclined; he had an income 
more than sufficient for his simple needs. He had not 
many close friends, though numerous acquaintances, 
among the contemporary men of letters: Bayard Taylor, 
Holmes, Hawthorne, Emerson, Lowell, and Longfellow; 
the southern poet, Paul Hamilton Hayne, who was much 
attracted by his broad spirit ; the English writers, Dickens 
and Kingsley. Much of his time he spent in writing 
letters to gifted ladies — Lucy Larcom, Alice and Phcebe 
Cary, Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Sarah 
Orne Jewett, and Mrs. Fields. 

In 1877, when he was seventy years old, he was the 
guest of honor at a dinner given by the publishers of 



26 INTRODUCTION 

The Atlantic Monthly to distinguished contributors. Ten 
years later, on his eightieth birthday, he was congratu- 
lated at Oak Knoll by the governor of the state and a 
committee, for he was nearly the last of the great New 
England abolitionists and poets. In 1892 he died and was 
buried in the village cemetery at Amesbury, where the 
other members of his family had been buried before him. 
He was, as one of his biographers says, the last sur- 
vivor of the circle that gathered about the hearth in the 
snow-bound homestead. Such was his art in the unique 
and imperishable poem, Snow-Bound, that there is no 
family in the world whose members are so widely known 
among the people who speak the English tongue. 



CRITICAL COMMENTS 

POE, LONGFELLOW, AND WHITTIER 

It [the early part of the nineteenth century] was a time 
of emotionalism in verse. Emotionalism revealed itself 
in the love of the mediaeval and the oriental, — both 
realms in which conventionalism seemed absent; in the 
keener sentiments with which scenery was regarded, as 
if the power of sight had been stimulated and trained; 
in a fondness for the exquisitely beautiful, for the wild 
and terrible and extraordinary; in a desire to be thrilled 
b}^ tales of madness and crime, to be torn with sympathy 
for the suffering; in religious fervor and in enthusiasm 
for humanitarian reform. This great quickening of the 
emotions made Scott and Byron and Shelley and Keats, 
and just as surely it declared itself [a little later] in Whit- 
tier and Longfellow and Lowell, in Hawthorne and Emer- 
son, brother romanticists all. 

Whittier's part in this movement was important. 
Bryant had already produced his noble early poems, 
inspired by the austere life and austere scenery surround- 
ing him in his childhood; Lowell was a frivolous boy. 
Brainard, the man of greatest promise, was dead; Willis, 
although so popular, was of no real importance; and 
the leaders in the obscure forward march were Poe, 
Longfellow, and Whittier. To Poe, as a disciple of 
Coleridge, belonged the advance on the purely artistic 
side, the evolution of melody. Longfellow was an avowed 
scholar, though destined to come back to poetry with 
the intent of creating a literature on foreign models. 

27 



28 INTRODUCTION 

Whittier was the only man of genius who was attacking 
the problem directly. — George R. Carpenter, in John 
Greenleaf Whittier. 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 

On the roll of our literature Poe's name is inscribed 
with the few foremost, and in the world at large his genius 
is established as valid among all men. Much as he 
derived nurture from other sources, he was the son of 
Coleridge by the weird touch of his imagination, by the 
principles of his analytic criticism, and the speculative 
bent of his mind. An artist primarily, whose skill, helped 
by the finest sensitive and perceptive powers in himself, 
was developed by thought, patience, and endless self- 
correction into a subtle deftness of hand unsurpassed in 
its own work, he belonged to the men of culture instead 
of those of originally perfect power; but being gifted with 
the dreaming instinct, the myth-making faculty, the 
allegorizing power, and with no other poetic element of 
high genius, he exercised his art in a region of vague 
feeling, symbolic ideas, and fantastic imagery, and wrought 
his spell largely through sensuous effects of color, sound, 
and gloom, heightened by lurking but unshaped sugges- 
tions of mysterious meanings. Now and then gleams of 
light and stretches of lovely landscape shine out, but for 
the most part his mastery was over dismal, superstitious, 
and waste places. In imagination, as in action, his was 
an evil genius; and in its realms of revery he dwelt alone. 
Except the wife who idolized him and the mother who 
cared for him, no one touched his heart in the years of 
his manhood, and at no time was love so strong in him as 
to rule his life. — George E. Woodberry, in The Life of 
Ed (jar Allan Poe. 

Without doubt, a distinctive melody is the element in 



INTRODUCTION 29 

Poe's verse that first and last has told on every class of 
readers, — a rhythmical effect which, be it of much or 
little worth, was its author 's own; and to add even one 
constituent to the resources of an art is what few succeed 
in doing. He gained hints from other poets toward this 
contribution, but the timbre of his own voice was required 
for that peculiar music reinforced by the correlative re- 
frain and repetend; a melody, but a monody as well, 
limited almost to the vibratory recurrence of a single 
and typical emotion, yet no more palling the ear than 
palls the constant sound of a falling stream. It haunted 
rather than irked the senses, so that the poet was recog- 
nized by it, — as Melmoth the Wanderer by the one 
delicious strain heard whenever he approached. This 
brought him, on the other hand, the slight of many com- 
peers, and for this the wisest of them spoke of him as 
the "j ingle-man. " Yet there is more than this, one may 
well conceive, in his station as a poet. — E. C. Stedman 
and G. E. Woodberry, in The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. 

Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius : a faculty 
of vigorous, yet minute, analysis, and a wonderful fe- 
cundity of imagination. . . . Besides the merit of con- 
ception, Mr. Poe's writings have also that of form. His 
style is highly finished, graceful, and truly classical. It 
would be hard to find a living author who had displayed 
such varied powers. . . . The great masters of imagina- 
tion have seldom resorted to the vague and the unreal as 
sources of effect. They have not used dread and horror 
alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as 
means of subjugating the fancies of their readers. The 
loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm 
about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies mainly in the skill with 
which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery 
and terror. In this his success is so great and striking 
as to deserve the name of art, not artifice. We cannot 



30 INTRODUCTION 

call his materials the noblest or the purest, but we must 
concede to him the highest merit of construction. . . . 
On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe 
has attained an individual eminence in our literature 
which he will keep. He has given proof of power and 
originality. He has done that which could only be done 
once with success or safety, and the imitation or repe- 
tition of which would produce weariness. — James Russell 
Lowell, in Graham's Magazine, February, 1845. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

His heart was pure, his purpose high, 

His thought serene, his patience vast; 
He put all strifes of passion by, 
And lived to God, from first to last. 

William Winter, in The N. Y. Tribune. 

It is no small thing for a singer to have a heart so pure 
and simple, an intellect so little isolated by years of 
foreign travel, of special study, of long association with 
men of distinction, that there is no barrier between him 
and the heart and intelligence of the people at large, of 
nineteen-twentieths of the race. Of American poets, 
only Whittier approached Longfellow in this respect of 
wide acceptation, and he was less national in his appeal; 
of modern British poets, only Scott. And Longfellow 
must be praised for the uses he made of this high oppor- 
tunity. He familiarizes his readers with the grace and 
flow of verse, with its melody and harmony. He intro- 
duces them to the beauty of olden times, of remote places, 
of foreign literature. He reveals to them the glory of 
the elementary virtues — faith and hope and love, 
optimism and aspiration. — George R. Carpenter, in 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Beacon Biographies). 



INTRODUCTION 31 

There was a notable sanity about all Longfellow's 
mode of life, and his attitude toward books and nature 
and men. It was the positive which attracted him, the 
achievement in literature, the large, seasonable gifts of 
the outer world, the men and women themselves who 
were behind the deeds and words which made them known. 
The books which he read, as noted in his journals, were the 
generous books ; he wanted the best wine of thought, and 
he avoided criticism. He basked in sunshine ; he watched 
the sky, and was alive to the great sights and sounds and 
to all the tender influences of the seasons. In his inter- 
course with men, this sanity appeared in the power which 
he showed of preserving his own individuality in the midst 
of constant pressure from all sides; he gave of himself 
freely to his intimate friends, but he dwelt, nevertheless, 
in a charmed circle, beyond the lines of which men could 
not penetrate. Praise did not make him arrogant or 
vain; criticism, though it sometimes wounded him, did 
not turn him from his course. It is rare that one in our 
time has been the center of so much admiration, and still 
rarer that one has preserved in the midst of it all that 
integrity of nature which never abdicates. — Horace E. 
Scudder, in Men and Letters : Essays in Characterization 
and Criticism. 

In estimating the life-work of Longfellow as a poet, 
the personality and the product cannot be separated. 
The sweet and sympathetic and strong and self-reliant 
soul, so fully portrayed in the three- volume life by the 
poet's brother, ever animates the verse. Longfellow 
looked out upon life and sang his thoughts concerning 
its joys and its mysteries. His lyrics and idyls and dra- 
matic studies and reflective poems illuminate with catho- 
lic sympathy and quiet optimism the procession of human 
existence: childhood, youth with its loves and hopes, 
middle-life with its wasting and weariness and patiently 



32 INTRODUCTION 

continued work, death as the transition to another stage 
of progress and experience. His poems lack not thought, 
nor feeling, nor art, but well combine the three. What 
he misses in intellectual greatness he possesses in heart- 
fulness. He was the St. John of our American apostles 
of song. His word was spoken to those who work and 
win, struggle and lose, love and bury. He ranged from 
the American hearthstone to the castle-towers of the 
Rhine. He adorned the simplest thought with spoils of 
mediaeval and continental culture. An American, he 
was too wise to refuse to learn of Europe. A man of 
culture, he knew as well as Hawthorne, that mere selfish 
intellectual wisdom turns the heart to stone. A man 
of books, he carried his sympathies with him as he entered 
his library door. His reading was bent toward the better- 
ment and the utterance of his good impulses, and not to 
their crushing. A lifelong moralizer, he shunned cant 
as the twin-devil of hypocrisy. He made the most of 
himself, in life and letters. Neither Providence nor 
error cut short his earthly service to song. We dare 
not say that his service shall last 

' 'As long as the river flows, 
As long as the heart has passions, 
As long as life has woes"; 

but it will be until another shall sing the same songs 
better. — Charles F. Richardson, in American Literature: 
1607-1885. 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

He was not one of the royally endowed, far-shining, 
" myriad-minded " poets. He was rustic, provincial; a 
man of his place and time in America. It is doubtful 
if European readers will ever find him richly suggestive, 
as they have found Emerson, Poe, and Whitman. But 



INTRODUCTION 33 

he had a tenacious hold upoir certain realities: first, 
upon the soil of New England, of whose history and legend 
he became such a sympathetic interpreter; next, upon 
"the good old cause " of freedom, not only in his own 
country but in all places where the age-long and still 
but half -won battle was being waged; and finally, upon 
some permanent objects of human emotion, — the hill- 
top, shore and sky, the fireside, the troubled heart that 
seeks rest in God. Whittier 's poetry has revealed to 
countless readers the patient continuity of human life, its 
fundamental unity, and the ultimate peace that hushes its 
discords. The utter simplicity of his Quaker's creed, has 
helped him to interpret the religious mood of a genera- 
tion which has grown impatient of formal doctrine. His 
hymns are sung by almost every body of Christians, 
the world over. It is unlikely that the plain old man 
who passed quietly away in a New Hampshire village on 
September 7, 1392, aged eighty-five, will ever be reckoned 
one of the world-poets. But he was, in the best sense of 
the word, a world's man in heart and in action, a sincere 
and noble soul who hated whatever was evil and helped 
to make the good prevail; and his verse, fiery and tender 
and unfeigned, will long be cherished by his countrymen. 
— Bliss Perry, in J". G. Whittier: A Sketch of His Life. 

Whittier as a poet is too well known to the American 
reader to call for any elaborate analysis of his style. As 
we turn over the collective edition of his poems, we are 
astonished to see the number of pieces that have be- 
come household words. Mogg Megone, Maud Muller, 
The Angels of Buena Vista, The Vaudois Teacher, My 
Soul and I, A Dream of Summer, Songs of Labor, The 
Barefoot Boy, Skipper Ireson's Ride, Barbara Frietchie 
— what a host of associations the very names evoke ! 
They and their twin brethren have long since passed 
into the hearts of the poet's countrymen. They are a 



34 INTRODUCTION 

part of ourselves. If we seek for the causes of this real 
popularity, we shall find one cause of it at least in Whit- 
tier's intense nationality. Bryant excepted, there is 
not an American poet who can, in this respect, be com- 
pared with Whittier. Setting aside a few, very few, 
songs on borrowed themes, we may say that everything 
that Whittier has written comes directly home to the 
American. What, for instance, can be more beautiful 
in its genial simplicity and also more characteristic than 
Snow-Bound? It may safely be ranked among the 
sweetest, most endearing idyls of the language. In it 
we see the fiery crusader of the Voices of Freedom soft- 
ened and mellowed into the retrospective artist. The 
period of fermentation has passed, the purification is 
complete. Harsh numbers are tuned to perfect accord; 
hatred of oppression has made way for broad humanity. 
If we read the Proem of 1847 side by side with Snow- 
Bound we shall have little difficulty in persuading our- 
selves that Whittier has not only nothing to fear from a 
comparison with melodious Spenser and Sidney, but has 
even surpassed them in artistic reality. — J. S. Hart. 

The American traveler in England who takes pains 
to inquire in bookstores as to the comparative standing 
of his country's poets among English readers, is likely 
to hear Longfellow ranked at the head, with Whittier 
a close second. In the same way, if he happens to attend 
English conventions and popular meetings, he will be 
pretty sure to hear these two authors quoted oftener 
than any other poets, British or American. This par- 
allelism in their fame makes it the more interesting to 
remember that Whittier was born within five miles of 
the old Longfellow homestead, where the grandfather 
of his brother poet was born. Always friends, though 
never intimate, they represented through life two quite 
different modes of rearing and education. Longfellow 



INTRODUCTION 35 

was the most widely traveled author of the Boston circle, 
Whittier the least so; Longfellow spoke a variety of 
languages, Whittier only his own; Longfellow had what- 
ever the American college of his time could give him, 
Whittier had none of it; Longfellow had the habits of a 
man of the world, Whittier those of a recluse; Longfellow 
touched reform but lightly, Whittier was essentially 
involved with it; Longfellow had children and grand- 
children, while Whittier led a single life. Yet in certain 
gifts, apart from poetic quality, they were alike; both 
being modest, serene, unselfish, brave, industrious, and 
generous. They either shared, or made up between them, 
the highest and most estimable qualities that mark poet 
or man. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in John Green- 
leaf Whittier (English Men of Letters Series) . 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

THE RAVEN 

Once upon 1 a midnight dreary, while I pondered, 
weak and weary, 

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgot- 
ten lore — 

While I nodded, nearly napping, 2 suddenly there 
came a tapping, 

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my 
chamber door, 

"'Tis some visitor/' I muttered, " tapping at my 
chamber door — ■ 

Only this and nothing more." 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak 

December, 3 
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost 4 

upon the floor. 
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had 

sought 5 to borrow 
From my books surcease of sorrow — ■ sorrow for 

the lost Lenore — ■ 

37 



38 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels 
name Lenore * — 

Nameless here for evermore. 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each 
purple curtain 2 

Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never 
felt before; 

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I 
stood repeating, 

" Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my cham- 
ber door — ■ 

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my cham- 
ber door; 

This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then 

no longer, 
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I 

implore; 
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you 

came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my 

chamber door, 
That I scarce was sure I heard you " — ■ here I 

opened wide the door 

Darkness 3 there and nothing more. 



THE RAVEN 39 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there 

wondering, fearing, 
Doubting, dreaming dreams 1 no mortal ever dared 

to dream before; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness 2 

gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered 

word "Lenore?" 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the 

word, " Lenore ! " — ■ 

Merely this and nothing more. 

Back into the chamber turning, 3 all my soul within 

me burning, 
Soon again I heard 4 a tapping something louder 

than before. 
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my 

window lattice; 
Let me see, then, what thereat is, 5 and this mystery 

explore — 
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery 

explore; — 

'Tis the wind and nothing more." 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a 
flirt and flutter, 



40 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

In there stepped a stately Raven 1 of the saintly 

days of yore. 
Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute 

stopped or stayed he, 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my 

chamber door — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas 2 just above my 

chamber door — 

Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird 3 beguiling my sad fancy into 

smiling, 
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance 

it wore, 
" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I 

said, "art sure no craven. 
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven wandering from 

the Nightly shore — 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's 

Plutonian shore ! " 4 

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 5 

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear 6 dis- 
course so plainly, 

Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy 
bore; 



THE RAVEN 41 

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human 1 

being 
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his 

chamber door — ■ 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his 

chamber door — ■ 

With such name as " Nevermore. " 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, 2 

spoke only 
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he 

did outpour. 
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then 

he fluttered = — ■ 
Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends 

have flown before — - 
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have 

flown before." 

Then the bird said, 3 " Nevermore." 

Startled 4 at the stillness broken by reply so aptly 
spoken, 

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only 
stock and store, 

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerci- 
ful Disaster 



42 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Followed fast l and followed faster till his songs one 

burden bore — • 
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden 

bore 

Of i Never — nevermore/ " 

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul 2 into 

smiling, 
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird 

and bust and door; 
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to 

linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird 

of yore — 
What this grim, ungainly, 3 ghastly, gaunt, and 

ominous bird of yore 

Meant in croaking " Nevermore." 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable 

expressing 
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my 

bosom's core; 
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease 

reclining 
On the cushion's velvet 4 lining that the lamp-light 

gloated o'er, 



THE RAVEN 43 

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light 
gloating o'er 

She shall press, ah, nevermore! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed 

from an unseen censor 
Swung by Seraphim 1 whose footfalls tinkled on the 

tufted floor. 
" Wretch/' 2 I cried, "thy God hath lent thee — by 

these angels he hath sent thee 
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories 

of Lenore! 
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe 3 and forget this 

lost Lenore!" 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! 4 — prophet still, 

if bird or devil ! — 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed 

thee here ashore, 
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land 

enchanted — 
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, 

I implore — 
Is there — is there balm in Gilead? 5 — tell me — ■ 

tell me, I implore!" 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 



44 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

"Prophet!" said I ; "thing of evil — prophet still, 
if bird or devil! — ■ 

By that Heaven that bends above us — -by that 
God/ we both adore — ■ 

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the dis- 
tant Aidenn, 2 

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels 
name Lenore — 

Clasp a rare and radiant 3 maiden whom the angels 
name Lenore." 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore. " 

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" 

I shrieked, upstarting — • 
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's 

Plutonian shore! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy 

soul hath spoken! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust 

above my door! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, 4 and take thy 

form from off my door!" 

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still 
is sittino: 



THE RAVEN 45 

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber 
door; 

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's * 
that is dreaming, 

And the lamp-light 2 o'er him streaming throws his 
shadow on the floor; 

And my soul from out that shadow that lies float- 
ing on the floor 

Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 

I 

MILES STANDISH 

In the Old Colony days/ in Plymouth the land 
of the Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive 

dwelling, 
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan 2 

leather, 
Strode, with martial air, Miles Standish 3 the Puritan 
Captain. 

47 



4S HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind 

him, and pausing 
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of 

warfare, 
Hanging in shining array along the walls of his 

chamber, — 
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of 

Damascus, 1 
Curved 2 at the point and inscribed with its mystical 

Arabic sentence, 
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, 

musket, and matchlock. 
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and ath- 
letic, 
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles 

and sinews of iron; 
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard 

was already 
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes 

in November. 
Near him was seated John Alden, 3 his friend and 

household companion, 
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by 

the window; 
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon com- 
plexion, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 49 

Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, 

as the captives 
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not 

Angles * but Angels. ?; 
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the 

Mayflower. 

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe 2 

interrupting, 
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth. 
" Look at these arms/' he said, "the warlike weapons 

that hang here 
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or 

inspection! 
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in 

Flanders; 3 this breastplate, — ■ 
Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a 

skirmish; 
Here in front you can see the very difit of the bullet 
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arca- 

bucero. 4 
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones 

of Miles Standish 
Would at this moment be mold, in their grave in 

the Flemish morasses. " 



50 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not 

up from his writing: 
" Truly the breath 1 of the Lord hath slackened the 

speed of the bullet; 
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and 

our weapon ! " 
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words 

of the stripling : 
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an 

arsenal hanging; 
That is because I have done it myself, and not left 

it to others. 
Serve yourself, 2 would you be well served, is an 

excellent adage; 
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and 

your inkhorn. 
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invin- 
cible army, 
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest 3 

and his matchlock, 
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and 

pillage, 
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my 

soldiers ! " 
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, 

as the sunbeams 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 51 

Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in 

a moment. 
Alden laughed * as he wrote, and still the Captain 

continued : 
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen 

howitzer planted 
High on the roof of the church, a preacher 2 who 

speaks to the purpose, 
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresist- 
ible logic, 
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts 

of the heathen. 
Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the 

Indians: 
Let them come if they like, and the sooner they try 

it the better, — ■ 
Let them come if they like, be it sagamore, 3 sachem, 

or pow-wow, 
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokama- 

hamon ! " 

Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed 

on the landscape, 
Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath 

of the east wind, 
Forest 4 and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue 

rim of the ocean, 



52 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and 
sunshine. 

Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on 
the landscape, 

Gloom intermingled with light; and his voice was 
subdued with emotion, 

Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he pro- 
ceeded: 

"Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried 
Rose Standish; 

Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the 
wayside ! 

She was the first to die of all who came in the May- 
flower ! 

Green above her is growing the field of wheat we 
have sown there, 

Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of 
our people, 

Lest they should count them and see how many 
already have perished ! " 

Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, 
and was thoughtful. 

Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, 
and among them 
Prominent three, 1 distinguished alike for bulk and 
for binding; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 53 

Barriffe's Artillery Guide/ and the Commentaries 2 
of Csesar, 

Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of 
London, 

And, as if guarded by these, between them was 
standing the Bible. 

Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish 
paused, as if doubtful 

Which of the three he should choose for his conso- 
lation and comfort, 

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous cam- 
paigns of the Romans, 

Or the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent 
Christians. 

Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponder- 
ous Roman, 

Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, 
and in silence 

Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb- 
marks thick 3 on the margin, 

Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was 
hottest. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying 
pen of the stripling, 

Busily writing epistles important, to go by the 
Mayflower, 



54 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, 

God willing! 
Homeward bound * with the tidings of all that 

terrible winter, 
Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of 

Priscilla, 
Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan 

maiden Priscilla! 

II 

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying 

pen of the stripling, 
Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of 

the Captain, 
Reading the marvelous words and achievements 

of Julius Caesar. 
After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his 

hand, palm downwards, 
Heavily on the page: "A wonderful man was this 

Caesar ! 
You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a 

fellow 
Who could both write and fight, and in both was 

equally skillful ! " 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 55 

Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the 

comely, the youthful: 
"Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his 

pen and his weapons. 
Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could 

dictate 
Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his 

memoirs. " 
"Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or 

hearing the other, 
"Truly a wonderful man was this Caius Julius 

Caesar! 
1 Better be first/ 1 he said, 'in a little Iberian vil- 
lage, 
Than be second in Rome/ and I think he was right 

when he said it. 
Twice was he married before he was twenty, and 

many times after; 
Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand 

cities he conquered; 
He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has 

recorded; 
Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator 

Brutus ! 
Now, do you know what he did on a certain occa- 
sion in Flanders, 



56 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

When the rear guard of his army retreated, the 

front giving way too, 
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so 

closely together 
There was no room for their swords? Why, he 

seized a shield from a soldier, 
Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and 

commanded the captains, 
Calling on each by his name, to order forward the 

ensigns; 
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for 

their weapons; 
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other. 
That's what I always say; if you wish, a thing to be 

well done, . 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 

others ! " 

All was silent again; the Captain continued his 

reading. 
Nothing was heard * in the room but the hurrying 

pen of the stripling 
Writing epistles important to go next day by the 

Mayflower, 
Filled with the name and the fame of the Puritan 

maiden Priscilla; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 57 

Every sentence began or closed with the name of 
Priscilla, 1 

Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the 
secret, 

Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the 
name of Priscilla! 

Finally closing his book, with a bang of the ponder- 
ous cover, 

Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier ground- 
ing his musket, 

Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the 
Captain of Plymouth: 

" When you have finished your work, I have some- 
thing important to tell you. 

Be not, however, in haste; I can wait; I shall not be 
impatient ! " 

Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of 
his letters, 

Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful 
attention : 

" Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready 
to listen, 

Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles 
Standish." 

Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and 
culling his phrases: 



58 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

" Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scrip- 
tures. 1 
This I have said before, and again and again I 

repeat it; 
Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and 

say it. 
Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary 

and dreary; 
Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of 

friendship. 
Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden 

Priscilla. 
She is alone in the world; 2 her father and mother 

and brother 
Died in the winter together; I saw her going and 

coming, 
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed 

of the dying, 
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to my- 
self, that if ever 
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in 

heaven, 
Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose 

name is Priscilla 
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other 

abandoned. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH £9 

Long have I cherished the thought, but never have 

dared to reveal it, 
Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for 

the most part. 
Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of 

Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words 

but of actions, 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of 

a soldier. 
Not in these words, you know, but this in short is 

my meaning; 
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases. 
You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in ele- 
gant language, 
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings 

and wooings of lovers, 
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of 

a maiden." 

When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, 

taciturn * stripling, 
All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, 

bewildered, 
Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject 

with lightness, 



GO' HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW 

Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand 

still in his bosom ; 
Just as a timepiece * stops in a house that is stricken 

by lightning, 
Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered 

than answered: 
" Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle 

and mar it; 
If you would have it well done, — I am only repeat- 
ing your maxim, 2 — 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 

others!" 
But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn 

from his purpose, 
Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain 

of Plymouth: 
" Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to 

gainsay it; 
But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder 

for nothing. 
Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of 

phrases. 
I can march up to a fortress and summon the place 

to surrender, 
But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I 

dare not. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 61 

I'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth 

of a cannon, 
But of a thundering l No ! ' point-blank from the 

mouth of a woman, 
That, I confess, I'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to 

confess it ! 
So "you must grant my request, for you are an ele- 
gant scholar, 
Having the graces of speech, and skill in the turning 

of phrases." 
Taking the hand of his friend, who still was reluc- 
tant and doubtful, 
Holding it long in his own, and pressing it kindly, 

he added: 
" Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet deep is 

the feeling that prompts me; 
Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of 

our friendship ! " 
Then made answer John Alden: "The name of 

friendship is sacred; 
What you demand in that name, I have not the 

power to deny you ! " 
So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding 

the gentler, 
Friendship prevailed over love 3 and Alden went on 

his errand. 



62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

III 

THE LOVER'S ERRAND 

So the strong will prevailed/ and Alden went on 

his errand, 
Out of the street of the village, and into the paths 

of the forest, 
Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins 

were building 
Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens 2 

of verdure, 
Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection and free 

dom. 
All around him was calm, but within him commo- 
tion and conflict, 
Love contending with friendship, and self with 

each generous impulse. 
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving 

and dashing, 
As in a foundering ship, with every roll of the vessel, 
Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge of the 

ocean ! 
"Must I relinquish it all," he cried with a wild 

lamentation, — 
"Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, the 

illusion? 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 63 

Was it for this I have loved, and waited, and wor- 
shiped in silence? 
Was it for this I have followed the flying feet 1 and 

the shadow 
Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shores of New 

England? 
Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its depths 

of corruption 
Rise, like an exhalation, the misty phantoms of 

passion; 
Angels of light they seem, but are only delusions 

of Satan. 
All is clear to me now; I feel it, I see it distinctly! 
This is the hand of the Lord; it is laid upon me in 

anger, 
For I have followed too much the heart's desires 

and devices, 
Worshiping Astaroth blindly, and impious idols of 

Baal. 2 
This is the cross I must bear; the sin and the swift 

retribution. " 

So through the Plymouth woods John Alden 
went on his errand; 
Crossing the brook at the ford, where it brawled 
over pebble and shallow, 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ' 

Gathering still, as he went, the mayflowers bloom- 
ing around him, 

Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonder- 
ful sweetness, 

Children 1 lost in the woods, and covered with 
leaves in their slumber. 

" Puritan flowers," he said, "and the type of Puri- 
tan maidens, 

Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of 
Priscilla ! 

So I will take them to her; to Priscilla the may- 
flower of Plymouth, 

Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting gift will 
I take them; 

Breathing their silent farewells, as they fade and 
wither and perish, 

Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of the 
giver." 

So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went 
on his errand; 

Came to an open space, and saw the disk of the 
ocean, 

Sailless, somber and cold with the comfortless 
breath of the east wind; 

Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a 
meadow; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 65 

Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice 
of Priscilla 

Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puri- 
tan anthem, 

Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the 
Psalmist, 

Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and com- 
forting many. 

Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form 
of the maiden 

Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool * like 
a snowdrift 

Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the 
ravenous spindle, 

While with her foot on the treadle she guided the 
wheel in its motion. 

Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm- 
book of Ainsworth, 

Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music 
together, 

Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall 
of a churchyard, 

Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the 
verses. 

Such was the book from whose pages she sang the 
old Puritan anthem, 2 

She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest, 



66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Making the humble house and the modest apparel 

of homespun 
Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth 

of her being! 
Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold 

and relentless, 
Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight 

and woe of his errand; 
All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes 

that had vanished, 
All his life * henceforth a dreary and tenantless 

mansion, 
Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful 

faces. 
Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it, 
" Let not him that putteth his hand to the plow 2 

look backwards; 
Though the plowshare cut through the flowers of 

life to its fountains, 
Though it pass o'er the graves of the dead and the 

hearths of the living, 
It is the will of the Lord; and his mercy endureth 

forever!" 3 

So he entered the house; and the hum of the 
wheel and the singing 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 67 

Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step 

on the threshold, 
Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in 

signal of welcome, 
Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your 

step in the passage; 
For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing 

and spinning.' 7 
Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought 

of him had been mingled 
Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart 

of the maiden, 
Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers 

for an answer, 
Finding no words for his thought. He remem- 
bered that day in the winter, 
After the first great snow, when he broke a path 

from the village, 
Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that 

encumbered the doorway, 
Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the 

house, and Priscilla 
Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat 

by the fireside, 
Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of 

her in the snow-storm. 



C8 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Had he but spoken then perhaps not in vain had 

he spoken! 
Now it was all too late; the golden moment had 

vanished ! 
So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers 

for an answer. 

Then they sat down and talked of the birds and 

the beautiful springtime; 
Talked of their friends at home, and the Mayflower 

that sailed on the morrow. 
"I have been thinking all day," said gently the 

Puritan maiden, 
" Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the 

hedgerows of England, — 
They are in blossom now, and the country is all 

like a garden; 
Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the 

lark and the linnet, 
Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of 

neighbors 
Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip to- 
gether, 
And, at the end of the street, the village church, 

with the ivy 
Climbing the old gray tower, and the quiet graves 

in the churchyard. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 69 

Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my 

religion; 
Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself back in 

Old England. 
You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it: I 

almost 
Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely 

and wretched." 

Thereupon answered the youth: " Indeed I do 

not condemn you; 
Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in 

this terrible winter. 
Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger 

to lean on; 
So I have come to you now, with an offer and 

proffer of marriage 
Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth!" 

Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous 
writer of letters, — 

Did not embellish the theme, nor array it in beauti- 
ful phrases, 

But came straight to the point, and blurted it out 
like a schoolboy; 



70 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Even the Captain himself could hardly have said 

it more bluntly. 
Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the 

Puritan maiden 
Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with 

wonder, 
Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned her and 

rendered her speechless; 
Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the 

ominous silence: 
" If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager 

to wed me, 
Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble 

to woo me? 
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not 

worth the winning!" 
Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing 

the matter, 
Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain 

was busy, — 
Had no time for such things; — such things! the 

words grating harshly 
Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she 

made answer: 
"Has he no time for such things, as you call it, 

before he is married, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 71 

Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the 

wedding? 
That is the way with you men; you don't understand 

us, you cannot. 
When you have made up your minds, after think- 
ing of this one and that one, 
Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with 

another, 
Then you make known your desire, with abrupt 

and sudden avowal, 
And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, 

that a woman 
Does not respond at once to a love that she never 

suspected, 
Does not attain at a bound to the height to which 

you have been climbing. 
This is not right nor just; for surely a woman's 

affection 
Is not a thing to be asked for, and had for only the 

asking. 
When one is truly in love, one not only says it, 

but shows it. 
Had he but waited a while, had he only showed 

that he loved me, 
Even this Captain of yours — who knows? — at 

last might have won me, 



72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Old and rough as he is; but now it never can happen." 

Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words 
of Priscilla, 

Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuad- 
ing, expanding; 

Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all his battles 
in Flanders, 

How with the people of God he had chosen to suffer 
affliction, 

How, in return for his zeal, they had made him 
Captain of Plymouth; 

He was a gentleman born, could trace his pedigree 
plainly 

Back to Hugh Standish 1 of Duxbury Hall, in Lan- 
cashire, England, 

Who was the son of Ralph, and the grandson of 
Thurston de Standish; 

Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely 
defrauded, 

Still bore the family arms, 2 and had for his crest a 
cock argent 

Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the 
blazon. 

He was a man of honor, of noble and generous 
nature; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 73 

Though he was rough, he was kindly; she knew 

how during the winter 
He had attended the sick, with a hand as gentle 

as woman's; 
Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny it, 

and headstrong, 
Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and placable 

always, 
Not to be laughed at and scorned, because he was 

little of stature; 
For he was great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, 

courageous; 
Any woman in Plymouth, nay, any woman in 

England, 
Might be happy and proud to be called the wife of 

Miles Standish! 

But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple 
and eloquent language, 

Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his 
rival, 

Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes over- 
running with laughter, 

Said, in a tremulous voice, " Why don't you speak 
for yourself, John?" * 



74 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

IV 

JOHN ALDEN 

Into the open air John Alden, 1 perplexed and be- 
wildered, 

Rushed like a man insane, and wandered alone by. 
the seaside; 

Paced up and down the sands, and bared his head 
to the east wind, 

Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and fever 
within him. 

Slowly, as out of the heavens, with apocalyptical 
splendors, 2 

Sank the City of God, in the vision of John the 
Apostle; 

So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, jasper, and 
sapphire, 

Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets up- 
lifted 

Glimmered the golden reed of the angel who meas- 
ured the city. 

"Welcome, O wind of the East!" he exclaimed 
• in his wild exultation, 
"Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caves of 
the misty Atlantic! 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 75 

Blowing o'er fields of dulse/ and measureless 

meadows of seagrass, 
Blowing o'er rocky wastes, and the grottoes and 

gardens of ocean ! 
Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning forehead, 

and wrap me 
Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the fever 

within me!" 

Like an awakened conscience, the sea was moan- 
ing and tossing, 

Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of 
the seashore. 

Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of 
passions contending; 

Love triumphant and crowned, and friendship 
wounded and bleeding, 

Passionate cries of desire, and importunate plead- 
ings of duty! 

"Is it my fault," he said, "that the maiden has 
chosen between us? 

Is it my fault that he failed, — my fault that I am 
the victor?" 

Then within him there thundered a voice, like the 
voice of the Prophet : 

"It hath displeased the Lord!" — and he thought 
of David's transgression, 2 



76 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Bathsheba's beautiful face, and his friend in the 
front of the battle ! 

Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and 
self-condemnation, 

Overwhelmed him at once; and he cried in the 
deepest contrition: 

"It hath displeased the Lord! It is the tempta- 
tion of Satan ! " 

Then, uplifting his head, he looked at the sea, 

and beheld there 
Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower riding 

at anchor, 
Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the 

morrow; 
Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle 

of cordage 
Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and 

the sailors' " Aye, aye, sir ! " 
Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping 

air of the twilight. 
Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and 

stared at the vessel, 
Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing a phan- 
tom, 
Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows the 

beckoning shadow. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 77 

"Yes, it is plain to me now/ 7 he murmured; "the 

hand of the Lord is 
Leading me out of the land of darkness, the bond- 
age of error, 
Through the sea, that shall lift the walls of its 

waters * around me, 
Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel thought? 

that pursue me. 
Back will I go o'er the ocean, this dreary land will 

abandon, 
Her 2 whom I may not love, and him whom my heart 

has offended. 
Better to be in my grave in the green old church- 
yard in England, 
Close by my mother's side, and among the dust 

of my kindred; 
Better be dead and forgotten, than living in shame 

and dishonor! 
Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of the 

narrow chamber 
With me my secret shall lie, like a buried jewel 

that glimmers 
Bright on the hand that is dust, in the chambers 

of silence and darkness, — 
Yes, as the marriage ring of the great espousal 

hereafter ! " 



78 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Thus as he spake, he turned, in the strength of 
his strong resolution, 

Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried along 
in the twilight, 

Through the congenial gloom of the forest silent 
and somber, 

Till he beheld the lights on the seven houses * of 
Plymouth, 

Shining like seven stars in the dusk and mist of 
the evening. 

Soon he entered his door, and found the redoubt- 
able Captain 

Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial pages 
of Caesar, 

Fighting some great campaign in Hainault or Bra- 
bant 2 or Flanders. 

" Long have you been on your errand,' ' he said with 
a cheery demeanor, 

Even as one who is waiting an answer, and fears 
not the issue. 

" Not far off is the house, although the woods are 
between us; 

But you have lingered so long, that while you 
were going and coming 

I have fought ten battles and sacked and demol- 
ished a city. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 79 

Come, sit down, and in order relate to me all that 
has happened. " 

Then John Alden spake, and related the won- 
drous adventure 

From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened ; 

How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped 1 
in his courtship, 

Only smoothing a little, and softening down her 
refusal, 

But when he came at length to the words Priscilla 
had spoken, 

Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak 
for yourself, John?" 

Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped 
on the floor, till his armor 

Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound 
of sinister omen. 

All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden ex- 
plosion, 

E'en as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction 
around it. 

Wildly he shouted, and loud: "John Alden! you 
have betrayed me ! 

Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, 
defrauded, betrayed me! 



80 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

One of my ancestors ran his sword through the 

heart of Wat Tyler; * 
Who shall prevent me from running my own through 

the heart of a traitor? 
Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason 

to friendship! 
You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished 

and loved as a brother; 
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my 

cup, to whose keeping 
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most 

sacred and secret, — ■ 
You too, Brutus! 2 ah, woe to the name of friendship 

hereafter ! 
Brutus was Caesar's friend, and you were mine, but 

henceforward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, and im- 
placable hatred ! " 

So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode 

about in the chamber, 
Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the 

veins on his temples. 
But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at 

the doorway, 
Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent 

importance, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 81 

Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions 

of Indians! 
Straightway the Captain paused, and, without 

further question or parley, 
Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its 

scabbard of iron, 
Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning 

fiercely, departed. 
Alden was left alone. 1 He heard the clank of the 

scabbard 
Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in 

the distance. 
Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into 

the darkness, 
Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot 

with the insult, 
Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding his 

hands as in childhood, 
Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who 

seeth in secret. 2 

Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful 
away to the council, 

Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting 
his coming; 

Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in de- 
portment, 



82 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Only one of them old, the hill 1 that was nearest 

to heaven, 
Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder 

of Plymouth. 
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat 

for this planting, 
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a 

nation; 
So say the chronicles old, 2 and such is the faith of 

the people! 
Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude 

stern and defiant, 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious 

in aspect; 
While on the table before them was lying unopened 

a Bible, 
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed 

in Holland, 
And beside it outstretched the skin 3 of a rattle- 
snake glittered, 
Filled, like a quiver, with arrows: a signal and 

challenge of warfare, 
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy 

tongues of defiance. 
This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and # 

heard them debating 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 83 

What were an answer befitting the hostile message 

and menace, 
Talking of this and of that, contriving, suggesting, 

objecting; 
One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the 

Elder, 1 
Judging it wise and well that some at least were 

converted, 
Rather than any were slain, for this was but Chris- 
tian behavior.! 
Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Cap- 
tain of Plymouth, 
Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky 

with anger, 
" What ! do you mean to make war with milk and 

the water of roses? 
Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer 

planted 
There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot 

red devils? 
Truly the only tongue that is understood by a 

savage 
Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the 

mouth of the cannon ! " 
Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder 

of Plymouth, 



84 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent 

language : 
"Not so thought Saint Paul, nor yet the other 

Apostles; 
Not from the cannon's mouth were the tongues of 

fire they spake with ! ■ ' 
But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain, 
Who had advanced to the table, and thus con- 
tinued discoursing: 
"Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it 

pertaineth. 
War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is 

righteous, 
Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the 

challenge!" 

Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden, 

contemptuous gesture, 
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder 

and bullets 
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the 

savage, 
Saying, in thundering tones: "Here, take it! this 

is your answer!" 
Silently out of the room then glided the glistening 

savage, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 85 

Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself 

like a serpent, 
Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths 

of the forest. 



THE SAILING OF THE MAYFLOWER 

Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose 
from the meadows, 

There was a stir and a sound 1 in the slumbering 
village of Plymouth; 

Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imper- 
ative, " Forward!" 

Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then 
silence. 

Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the 
village. 

Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valor- 
ous army, 

Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of 
the white men, 

Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of 
the savage. 

Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men 
of King David; 2 



86 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Giants in heart they were, who believed in -God 

and the Bible, — 
Aye, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and 

Philistines. 
Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of 

morning; 
Under them loud on the sands, the serried * billows, 

advancing, 
Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated. 

Many a mile had they marched, when at length 

the village of Plymouth 
Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its mani- 
fold labors. 
Sweet was the air and soft; and slowly the smoke 

from the chimneys 
Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily 

eastward; 
Men came forth from the doors, and paused and 

talked of the weather, 
Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing 

fair for the Mayflower; 
Talked of their Captain's departure, and all the 

dangers that menaced, 
He being gone, the town, and what should be done 

in his absence. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 87 

Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of 

women 
Consecrated with hymns the common cares of the 

household. 
Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows re- 
joiced at his coming; 
Beautiful were his feet * on the purple tops of the 

mountains; 
Beautiful on the sails of the Mayflower riding at 

anchor, 
Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms 

of the winter. 
Loosely against her masts was hanging and flap- 
ping her canvas, 
Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands 

of the sailors. 
Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the 

ocean, 
Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward; anon 

rang 
Loud over field and forest the cannon's roar, and 

the echoes 
Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of 

departure ! 
Ah! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of 

the people! 



88 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read 

from the Bible, 
Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent 

entreaty ! 
Then from their houses in haste came forth the 

Pilgrims of Plymouth, 
Men and women and children, all hurrying down 

to the seashore, 
Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the 

Mayflower, 
Homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving them 

here in the desert. 1 

Foremost among them was Alden. All night he 

had lain without slumber, 
Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest 

of his fever. 
He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late 

from the council, 
Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and 

murmur, 
Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it 

sounded like swearing. 
Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a 

moment in silence; 
Then he had turned away, and said: "I will not 

awake him; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 89 

Let him sleep on, it is best; for what is the use of 

more talking ! " 
Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself 

down on his pallet, 
Dressed as he was, and ready to start at the break 

of the morning, — 
Covered himself with the cloak he had worn in his 

campaigns in Flanders, — 
Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for 

action. 
But with the dawn he arose; in the twilight Alden 

beheld him 
Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his 

armor, ' 
Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Da- 
mascus, 
Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out 

of the chamber. 
Often the heart of the youth had burned and yearned 

to embrace him, 
Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for 

pardon; 
All the old friendship came back with its tender and 

grateful emotions; 
But his pride overmastered the nobler nature within 

him, — 



90 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the burning 

fire of the insult. 
So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but 

spake not, 
Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and 

he spake 1 not ! 
Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the 

people were saying, 
Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and 

Richard and Gilbert, 2 
Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading 

of Scripture, 
And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down 

to the seashore, 
Down to the Plymouth Rock, 3 that had been to 

their feet as a doorstep 
Into a world unknown, — the corner stone of a nation ! 

There with his boat was the Master, 4 already a 

little impatient 
Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might 

shift to the eastward, 
Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an odor of 

ocean about him, 
Speaking with this one and that, and cramming 

letters and parcels 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 91 

Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled 

together 
Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly 

bewildered. 
Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed 

on the gunwale/ 
One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with 

the sailors, 
Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for 

starting. 
He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his 

anguish, 
Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel 

is or canvas, 
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would 

rise and pursue him. 
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form 

of Priscilla 
Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all 

that was passing. 
Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his 

intention, 
Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, 

and patient, 
That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled 

from its purpose, 



92 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is 

destruction. 
Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mys- 
terious instincts! 
Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are 

moments, 
Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall 

adamantine ! 
" Here I remain ! " x he exclaimed, as he looked at the 

heavens above him, 
Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the 

mist and the madness, 
Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was stagger- 
ing headlong. 
" Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether 

above me, 
Seems like a hand that is pointing and beckoning 

over the ocean. 
There is another hand, that is not so spectral and 

ghost-like, 
Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine 

for protection. 
Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the 

ether ! 
Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt 

me; I heed not 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 93 

Either your warning or menace, or any omen of 

evil! 
There is no land so sacred, no air so pure and so 

wholesome, 
As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed 

by her footsteps. 
Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible 

presence 
Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting 

her weakness; 
Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this 

rock at the landing, 
So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at 

the leaving!" 

Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dignified 
air and important, 

Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind 
and the weather, 

Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded 
around him 

Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful 
remembrance. 

Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasp- 
ing a tiller, 

Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off 
to his vessel. 



94 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and 

flurry, 
Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness 

and sorrow, 
Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing 

but Gospel! 
Lost in the sound of oars was the last farewell of 

the Pilgrims. 
strong hearts and true! not one went back in the 

Mayflower ! 
No, not one looked back, who had set his hand * to 

this plowing! 

Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs 

of the sailors 
Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the pon- 
derous anchor. 
Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the 

west wind, 
Blowing steady and strong; and the Mayflower 

sailed from the harbor, 
Rounded the point of the Gurnet, 2 and leaving far 

to the southward 
Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First 

Encounter, 3 
Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the 

open Atlantic, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 95 

Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling 
hearts of the Pilgrims. 

Long in silence they watched the receding sail 

of the vessel, 
Much endeared to them all, as something living 

and human; 
Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a 

vision prophetic, 
Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of 

Plymouth 
Said, " Let us pray I" and they prayed, and thanked 

the Lord and took courage. 1 
Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the 

rock, and above them 
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of 

death, and their kindred 
Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the 

prayer that they uttered. 
Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of 

the ocean 
Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a 

graveyard; 
Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping. 
Lo ! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of 

an Indian, 



yG HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Watching them from the hill; but while they spake 
with each other, 

Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, 
"Look!" he had vanished. 

So they returned to their homes; but Alden lin- 
gered a little, 

Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash 
of the billows 

Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and 
flash of the sunshine, 

Like the spirit of God, 1 moving visibly over the 
waters. 

VI 

PRISCILLA 

Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the 

shore of the ocean, 
Thinking of many things, and most of all of Pris- 

cilla; 
And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, 

like the loadstone, 
Whatsoever it touches, by subtle laws of its 

nature, 
Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing 

beside him. 



98 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

"Are you so much offended, you will not speak 

to me?" said she. 
" Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you 

were pleading 
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive 

and wayward, 
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps 

of decorum? 
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, 

for saying 
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never 

unsay it; 
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so 

full of emotion, 
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths 

like a pebble 
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its 

secret, 
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gath- 
ered together. 
Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak 

of Miles Standish, 
Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects 

into virtues, 
Praising his courage and strength, and even his 

fighting in Flanders, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 99 

As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a 

woman, 
Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting 

your hero. 
Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse. 
You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the 

friendship between us, 
Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily 

broken ! " 
Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the 

friend of Miles Standish: 
" I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was 

angry, 
Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in 

my keeping. " 
" No! ' n interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt 

and decisive; 
"No; you were , angry with me, for speaking so 

frankly and freely. 
It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a 

woman 
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost 

that is speechless, 
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its 

silence. 
Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women 



100 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean 

rivers 
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, 

unseen, and unfruitful, 
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and 

profitless murmurs." 
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, 

the lover of women : 
"Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem 

to me always 
More like the beautiful rivers * that watered the 

garden of Eden, 
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of 

Havilah flowing, 
Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet 

of the garden!" 
" Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted 

the maiden, 
"How very little you prize me, or care for what I 

am saying. 
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and 

with secret misgiving, 
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only 

and kindness, 
Straightway you take up my words, that are plain 

and direct and in earnest, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 101 

Turn them away from their meaning, and answer 
with flattering phrases. 

This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best 
that is in you; 

For I know and esteem you, and feel that your 
nature is noble, 

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level. 

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it per- 
haps the more keenly 

If you say aught that implies I am only as one 
among many, 

If you make use of those common and compli- 
mentary phrases 

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking 
with women, 

But which women reject as insipid, if not as in- 
sulting." 

Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and 

looked at Priscilla, 
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more 

divine in her beauty. 
He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause 

of another, 
Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in 

vain for an answer. 



102 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

So the maiden went on, and little divined or imag- 
ined 
What was at work in his heart, that made him so 

awkward and speechless. 
" Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we 

think, and in all things 
Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred pro- 
fessions of friendship. 
It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to 

declare it: 
I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak 

with you always. 
So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted 

to hear you 
Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the 

Captain Miles Standish. 
For I must tell you the truth: much more to me is 

your friendship 
Than all the love he could give, were he twice the 

hero you think him." 
Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who 

eagerly grasped it, 
Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching 

and bleeding so sorely, 
Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, 

with a voice full of feeling: 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 103 

"Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer 

you friendship 
Let me be e'er the first, the truest, the nearest and 

dearest ! " 

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of 
the Mayflower 

Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the 
horizon, 

Homeward together they walked, with a strange, 
indefinite feeling, 

That all the rest had departed and left them alone 
in the desert. 

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing 
and smile of the sunshine, 

Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very 
archly : 

" Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit 
of the Indians, 

Where he is happier far than he would be command- 
ing a household, 

You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that 
happened between you, 

When you returned last night, and said how un- 
grateful you found me." 

Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the 
whole of the story, — 



104 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath 1 of 

Miles Standish. 
Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between 

laughing and earnest, 
" He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a mo- 
ment !" 
But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how 

much he had suffered, — 
How he had even determined to sail that day in the 

Mayflower, 
And remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers 

that threatened, — 
All her manner was changed, 2 and she said with a 

faltering accent, 
11 Truly I thank you for this: how good you have 

been to me always!" 

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem 

journeys, 
Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly 

backward, 
Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs 

of contrition; 
Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever 

advancing, 
Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land 3 

of his longings, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 105 

Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by re- 
morseful misgivings. 

VII 

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH 

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was 

marching steadily northward, 
Winding through forest and swamp, and along the 

trend of the seashore, 
All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his 

anger 
Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous 

odor of powder 
Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the 

scents of the forest. 
Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved 

his discomfort; 
He who was used to success, and to easy victories 

always, 
Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn 

by a maiden, 
Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend 

whom most he had trusted! 
Ah! 'twas too much to be borne, and he fretted and 

chafed in his armor! 



106 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

"I alone am to blame/' lie muttered, "for mine 

was the folly. 
What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray 

in the harness, 
Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the 

wooing of maidens? 
Twas but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish 

like so many others! 
What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is 

worthless; 
Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, 

and henceforward 
Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of 

dangers ! " 
Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and 

discomfort, 
While he was marching by day or lying at night in 

the forest, 
Looking up at the trees and the constellations 

beyond them. 

After a three days' march he came to an Indian 

encampment 
Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea 

and the forest; 
Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, 

horrid with warpaint, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 107 

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking 

together; 
Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach 

of the white men, 
Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and saber 

and musket, 
Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from 

among them advancing, 
Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs 

as a present; 
Friendship was * in their looks, but in their hearts 

there was hatred. 
Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, gigan- 
tic in stature, 
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, 2 king 

of Bashan; 
One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called 

Wattawamat. 
Round their necks were suspended their knives in 

scabbards of wampum, 3 
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp 

as a needle. 
Other arms had they none, for they were cunning 

and crafty. 
" Welcome, English ! " they said, — these words 

they had learned from the traders 



108 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and 

chaffer for peltries. 
Then in their native tongue they began to parley 

with Standish, 
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend 

of the white man, 
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for 

muskets and powder, 
Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with 

the plague, in his cellars, 
Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the 

red man! 
But when Standish refused, and said he would give 

them the Bible, 
Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast 

and to bluster. 
Then Wattawamat 1 advanced with a stride in 

front of the other, 
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake 

to the Captain: 
" Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of 

the Captain, 
Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave 

Wattawamat 
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a 

woman, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 109 

f 

But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven 

by lightning, 
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons 

about him, 
Shouting, 'Who is there here to fight with the 

brave Wattawamat?'" 
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the 

blade on his left hand, 
Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the 

handle, 
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister 

meaning : 
"I have another at home, with the face of a man 

on the handle; 
By and by they shall marry; and there will be 

plenty of children!" 

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, in- 
sulting Miles Standish; 

While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung 
at his bosom, 

Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it 
back, as he muttered, 

"By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but 
shall speak not! 

This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent 
to destroy us! 



110 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

He is a little man; let him go and work with the 
women ! " 

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and 

figures of Indians 
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in 

the forest, 
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their 

bow-strings, 
Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of 

their ambush. 
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated 

them smoothly; 
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days 

of the fathers. 
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the 

taunt, and the insult, 
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of 

Thurston de Standish, 
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the 

veins of his temples. 
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, 1 and, snatching 

his knife from its scabbard, 
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, 

the savage 
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierce- 
ness npon it. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 111 

Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound 

of the war-whoop, 
And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of 

December, 
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery- 
arrows. 
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud 

came the lightning, 
Out of the lightning thunder; 1 and death unseen 

ran before it. 
Frightened, the savages fled for shelter in swamp 

and in thicket, 
Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the 

brave Wattawamat, 
Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had 

a bullet 
Passed through his brain, and he fell with both 

hands clutching the greensward, 
Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land 

of his fathers. 

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors 

lay, and above them 
Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, 2 friend of 

the white man. 
Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart 

Captain of Plymouth: 



112 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

"Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his 

strength, and his stature, — 
Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little 

man; but I see now 
Big enough have you been to lay him speechless 

before you!" 

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the 

stalwart Miles Standish. 
When the tidings thereof were brought to the 

village of Plymouth, 
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wat- 

tawamat 
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was 

a church and a fortress, 
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, 

and took courage. 
Only Priscilla averted her face from this specter of 

terror, 
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married 

Miles Standish; 
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from 

his battles, 
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and 

reward of his valor. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 113 



THE SPINNING WHEEL 

Month after month passed away, and in autumn 

the ships of the merchants 
Came 1 with kindreds and friends, with cattle and 

corn for the Pilgrims. 
All in the village was peace; the men were intent on 

their labors, 
Busy with hewing and building, with garden plot 

and with merestead, 
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the 

grass in the meadows, 
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer 

in the forest. 
All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor 

of warfare 
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of 

danger. 
Bravely the stalwart Miles Standish was scouring 

the land with his forces, 
Waxing valiant in fight 2 and defeating the alien 

armies, 
Till his name had become a sound of f^ar to the 

nations. 



114 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Anger was still in his heart, but at times the re- 
morse and contritiViL 

Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate 
outbreak, 

Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of 
a river, 

Staying its current a while, but making it bitter 
and brackish. 

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new 

habitation, 
Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the 

firs of the forest. 
Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was 

covered with rushes; 
Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes 

were of paper, 
Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were 

excluded. 
There too he dug a well, and around it planted an 

orchard : 
Still may be seen to this day 1 some trace of the 

well and the orchard. 
Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and 

secure from annoyance, 
Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to 

Alden's allotment 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 115 

In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the 

• night-time 
Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by- 
sweet pennyroyal. 

Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet 

would the dreamer 
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to 

the house of Priscilla, 
Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of 

fancy, 
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the sem- 
blance of friendship. 
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls 

of his dwelling; 
Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil 

of his garden; 
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible 

on Sunday 
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in 

the Proverbs, 1 — 
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in 

her always, 
How all the days of her life she will do him good, 

and not evil, 
How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh 

with gladness, 



116 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth 

the distaff, 
How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her 

household, 
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet 

cloth of her weaving! 

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the 

autumn, 
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her 

dexterous fingers, 
As if the thread she was spinning were that of his 

life and his fortune, 
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound 

of the spindle: 
" Truly, Priscilla," he said, "when I see you spin- 
ning and spinning, 
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of 

others ; 
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed 

in a moment; 
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beauti- 

fu 1 Spinner." 
Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and 

swifter; the spindle 
Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped 

short in her fingers; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 117 

While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mis- 
chief, continued: 

"You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the 
queen of Helvetia; x 

She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of 
Southampton, 

Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er valley and 
meadow and mountain, 

Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed 
to her saddle. 

She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed 
into a proverb. 

So shall it be with your own, when the spinning 
wheel shall no longer 

Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its cham- 
bers with music. 

Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it 
was in their childhood, 

Praising the good old times, and the days of Pris- 
cilla the spinner ! " 

Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puri- 
tan maiden, 

Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose 
praise was the sweetest, 

Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of 
tier spinning, 



118 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering 

phrases of Alden: 
"Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for 

housewives, 
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of 

husbands. 
Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, 

ready for knitting; 
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have 

changed and the manners, 
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old 

times of John Alden ! " 
Thus, w r ith a jest and a laugh, the skein on his 

hands she adjusted, 
He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended 

before him, 
She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread 

from his fingers, 
Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of 

holding, 
Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled 

expertly 
Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares — for how 

could she help it? — ■ 
Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in 

his body. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 119 

Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless mes- 
senger entered, 
Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from 

the village. 
Yes; Miles Standish was dead! — an Indian had 

brought them the tidings, — ■ 
Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front 

of the battle, 
Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of 

his forces; 
All the town would be burned, and all the people be 

murdered ! 
Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the 

hearts of the hearers. 
Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face look- 
ing backward 
Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted 

in horror; 
But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the 

arrow 
Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, 

and had sundered 
Once and forever the bonds that held him bound 

as a captive, 
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of 

his freedom, 



120 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what 

he was doing, 
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form 

of Priscilla, 
Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, 

and exclaiming: 
" Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man 

put them asunder!" * 

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and sep- 
arate sources, 
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, 

and pursuing 
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the 

forest; 
So these lives that had run thus far in separate 

channels, 
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and 

flowing asunder, 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the 

ether. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 121 
IX 
THE WEDDING-DAY 

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent 
of purple and scarlet, 

Issued the sun, 1 the great High-Priest, in his gar- 
ments resplendent, 

Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his 
forehead, 

Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and 
pomegranates. 

Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor 
beneath him 

Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his 
feet was a laver! 

This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puri- 
tan maiden. 

Friends were assembled together; the Elder and 
Magistrate also 

Graced the scene with their presence, and stood 
like the Law and the Gospel, 

One with the sanction of earth and one with the 
blessing of heaven. 

Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth 
and of Boaz. 2 



122 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the 

words of betrothal, 
Taking each other for husband and wife in the 

Magistrate's presence, 
After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of 

Holland. 1 
Fervently then and devoutly, the excellent Elder 

of Plymouth 
Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were 

founded that day in affection, 
Speaking of life and of death, and imploring Divine 

benedictions. 

Lo ! when the service was ended, a form appeared 
on the threshold, 

Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful 
figure ! 

Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the 
strange apparition? 

Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on 
his shoulder? 

Is it a phantom of air, — a bodiless, spectral illusion? 

Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to for- 
bid the betrothal? 

Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, 
unwelcomed; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 123 

Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an 

expression 
Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart 

hidden beneath them, 
As when across the sky the driving rack * of the 

rain cloud 
Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by 

its brightness. 
Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but 

was silent, 
As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting inten- 
tion. 
But when were ended the troth and the prayer and 

the last benediction, 
Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with 

amazement 
Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Cap- 
tain of Plymouth! 
Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with 

emotion, " Forgive me ! 
I have been angry and hurt, — too long have I 

cherished the feeling; 
I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! 

it is ended. 
Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins 

of Hugh Standish, 



124 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for 
error. 

Never so much as now was Miles Standish the 
friend of John Alden." 

Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be 
forgotten between us, — 

All save the dear old friendship, and that shall 
grow older and dearer!" 

Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted 
Priscilla, 

Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned 
gentry in England, 

Something of camp and court, of town and of 
country, commingled, 

Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding 
her husband. 

Then he said with a smile: "I should have remem- 
bered the adage, — 

If you would be well served, you must serve your- 
self, and, moreover, 

No man can gather cherries in Kent * at the season 
of Christmas!" 

Great was the people's amazement, and greater 
yet their rejoicing, 
Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of 
the ; v Captain, 



THE COURTSHIP of MILES STANDISH 125 

Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gath- 
ered and crowded about him, 

Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride 
and of bridegroom, 

Questioning, answering, laughing, and each inter- 
rupting the other, 

Till the good Captain declared, being quite over- 
powered and bewildered, 

He had rather by far break into an Indian encamp- 
ment, 

Than come again to a wedding to which he had not 
been invited. 

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood 

with the bride at the doorway, 
Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and 

beautiful morning. 
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad 

in the sunshine, 
Lay extended before them the land of toil and 

privation; 
There were the graves of the dead, and the barren 

waste of the seashore, 
There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and 

the meadows; 
But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the 

Garden of Eden, 



123 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was 
the sound of the ocean. 

Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and 

stir of departure, 
Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient 

of longer delaying, 
Each with his plan for the day, and the work that 

was left uncompleted. 
Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations 

of wonder," 
Alden, the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so 

proud of Priscilla, 
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand 

of its master, 
Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its 

nostrils, 
Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed 

for a saddle. 
She should not walk, he said, through the dust and 

heat of the noonday; 
Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along 

like a peasant. 
Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the 

others, 
Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the 

hand of her husband, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 127 

Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her 

palfrey. 
" Nothing is wanting now," he said with a smile, 

"but the distaff; 
Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful 

Bertha!" 

Onward the bridal procession now moved to their 

new habitation, 
Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing 

together. 
Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed 

the ford in the forest, 
Pleased with the image * that passed, like a dream 

of love through its bosom, 
Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the 

azure abysses. 
Down through the golden leaves the sun was pour- 
ing his splendors, 
Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches 

above them suspended, 
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the 

pine and the fir-tree, 
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the 

valley of Eshcol. 2 
Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral 

ages, 



128 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling 

Rebecca and Isaac/ 
Old and yet ever new, 2 and simple and beautiful 

always, 
Love immortal and young in the endless succession 

of lovers. 
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the 

bridal procession. 







JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

SNOW-BOUND 

A WINTER IDYLi 

To the Memory of the Household it Describes 

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 

" As the Spirits of Darkness be strong3r in the dark, so 
good Spirits which be Ang4s of Light are augmented not 
only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common 
Wood Fire : and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, 
so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same. ?; — Cor. Agrippa, 
Occult Philosophy, 2 Book i. ch. v. 

" Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emerson, The Snow-Storm. 

The sun that brief December day s 

Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 

And, darkly circled, gave at noon 

A sadder light than waning moon. 

Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
129 



130 JOHN GREENLEAF WII1TTIER 

Its mute and ominous prophecy, 

A portent seeming less than threat, 

It sank from sight before it set. 

A chill no coat, however stout, 

Of homespun stuff 1 could quite shut out, 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 

Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 

The coming 2 of the snow-storm told. 

The wind blew east; we heard the roar 3 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 

And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 

Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — • 
Brought in the wood from out of doors, 
Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows: 
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; 
And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
Impatient down the stanchion 4 rows 
The cattle shake their walnut bows; 
While, peering from his early perch 
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 
The cock his crested 5 helmet bent 
And down his querulous 8 challenge sent. 



SNOW-BOUND 131 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 1 

So all night long the storm roared on: 

The morning broke without a sun; 

In tiny spherule 2 traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake and pellicle 

All day the hoary meteor fell; 

And, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown, 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — ■ 

A universe of sky and snow!^ - 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 



132 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER 

Or garden-wall or belt of wood; 

A smooth white mound * the brush-pile showed, 

A fenceless drift what once was road; 

The bridle-post an old man sat 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof; 

And even the long sweep, high aloof, 

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 

Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 2 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 

Our father 3 wasted: "Boys, a path!" 

Well pleased (for when did farmer boy 

Count such a summons less than joy?) 

Our buskins 4 on our feet we drew; 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, 
To guard our necks and ears from snOw, 

We cut the solid whiteness through; 

And, where the drift was deepest, made 

A tunnel walled and overlaid 

With dazzling crystal: we had read 

Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, 5 

And to our own his name we gave, 

With many a wish the luck were ours 

T\) test his lamp's supernal powers. 

We reached the barn with merry din. 



SNOW-BOUND 133 

And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
The old horse thrust his long head out, 
And grave with wonder gazed about; 
The cock his lusty greeting said, 
And forth his speckled harem led; 
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 
And mild reproach of hunger looked; 
The horned patriarch of the sheep, 
Like Egypt's Amun * roused from sleep, 
Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 

The loosened drift its breath before; 

Low circling round its southern zone, 

The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 

No church-bell 2 lent its Christian tone 

To the savage air, no social smoke 

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 

A solitude 3 made more intense 

By dreary-voiced elements, 

The shrieking of the mindless wind, 

The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 

And on the glass the unmeaning beat 

Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 



134 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER 

No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
Unbound the spell, and testified 
Of human life and thought outside. 
We minded * that the sharpest ear 
The buried brooklet 2 could not hear, 
The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to us companionship, 
And, in our lonely life, had grown 
To have an almost human tone. 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 
Of wooded knolls 3 that ridged the west, 
The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank 
From sight beneath the smothering bank, 
We piled with care our nightly stack 
Of wood against the chimney-back, — 
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick; 
The knotty forestick laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush; then, hovering near, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 



SNOW-BOUND 135 

While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
The crane and pendent trammels 1 showed, 
The Turk's heads on the andirons 2 glowed; 
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 
Whispered the old rhyme: " Under the tree, 
When fire outdoors burns merrily, 
There the witches are making tea." 

The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood 
Transfigured in the silver flood, 
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the somber green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness of their back. 
For such a world and such a night 
Most fitting that unwarming light, 
Which only seemed where'er it fell 
To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 



136 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

We sat the clean-winged hearth * about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line 2 back with tropic heat; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed; 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
The cat's dark silhouette 3 on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 4 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's 5 wood. 

What matter how the night behaved? 
What matter how the north- wind raved? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray 
As was my sire's that winter day, 



SNOW-BOUND 137 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou * 

Are left of all that circle now, — ■ 

The dear home faces whereupon 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 

Henceforward, listen as we will, 

The voices of that hearth are still; 2 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 

We tread the paths their feet have worn, 

We sit beneath their orchard trees, 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn; 
We turn the pages that they read, 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor! 
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust 
(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. ' 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees! 3 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 



138 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Across the mournful marbles ! play! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own! 

We sped the time 2 with stories old, 
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, 
Or stammered from our school-book lore 
"The chief of Gambia's 3 golden shore." 
How often since, when all the land 
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, 4 
As if a trumpet called, I Ve heard 
Dame Mercy Warren's rousing word: 
" Does not tht voice of reason cry, 

Claim the first right which Nature gave 9 
From the red scourge of bondage fly 

Nor deign to live a burdened slave! " 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's 5 wooded side; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 6 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' 7 hemlock trees; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
On Norman cap and bodiced zone; 8 



SNOW-BOUND 139 

Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 
The grandam and the laughing girl, 
Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes 1 spread 

Mile- wide as flies the laden bee; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 2 

The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 3 

And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 

The hake-broil on the driftwood coals; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
And dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 

The square sail of the gundalow, 
And idle lay the useless oars. 
Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking heel, 



140 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cocheco town/ 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 
So rich and picturesque and free 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways), 
The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome 2 to her home; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 3 
The loon's weird laughter far away; 
We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 



SNOW-BOUND 141 

Then, haply, with a look more grave 

And soberer tone, some tale she gave * 

From painful Sewel's 2 ancient tome, 

Beloved in every Quaker home, 

Of faith fire-winged 3 by martyrdom, 

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, 4 — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — - 

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence, mad for food, 

With dark hints muttered under breath 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

Offered, 5 if Heaven withheld supplies, 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise flashed in view. 

"Take, eat/' he said, "and be content; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 

To spare the child of Abraham." 6 

Our uncle, 7 innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 



142 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

The ancient teachers never dumb 
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 1 
In moons and tides and weather wise, 
He read the clouds as prophecies, 
And foul or fair could well divine, 
By many an occult hint and sign, 
Holding the cunning-warded keys 
To all the woodcraft mysteries; 
Himself to Nature's heart so near 
That all her voices in his ear 
Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 
Like Apollonius 2 of old, 
Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 
Or Hermes, 3 who interpreted 
What the sage cranes of Nilus said; 
A simple, guileless, childlike man, 
Content to live where life began; 
Strong only on his native grounds, 
The little world of sights and sounds 
Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 
Whereof his fondly partial pride 
The common features magnified, 
As Surrey hills to mountains grew 
In White of Selborne's 4 loving view, 
He told how teal and loon he shot, 
And how the eagle's eggs he got, 



SNOW-BOUND 143 

The feats on pond and river done, 

The prodigies of rod and gun; 

Till, warming with the tales he told, 

Forgotten was the outside cold, 

The bitter wind unheeded blew, 

From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink. 

In fields with bean or clover gay, 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, 

Peered from the doorway of his cell; 
The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, 1 whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome whereso'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 
Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home, — 



144 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER 

Called up her girlhood memories, 
The huskings and the apple-bees, 
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 
Weaving through all the poor details 
And homespun warp of circumstance 1 
A golden woof-thread of romance. 
For well she kept her genial mood 
And simple faith of maidenhood; 
Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way; 
The morning dew, that dried so soon 
With others, glistened at her noon; 
Through years of toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 
All unprofaned she held apart 
The virgin fancies of the heart. 
Be shame to him of woman born 
Who had for such but 2 thought of scorn 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Her evening task the stand beside; 3 
A full, rich nature, free to trust, 
Truthful and almost sternly just, 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 
And make her generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a light disguise 



SNOW-BOUND 145 

The secret of self-sacrifice. 

heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things! 

How many a poor one's blessing went 
With thee beneath the low green tent 
Whose curtain never * outward swings! 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided 2 mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 
Now bathed within the fadeless green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms, 
Do those large eyes behold me still? 
With me one little year ago : 3 — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 

For months upon her grave has lain; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 

1 tread the pleasant paths we trod, 



146 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

I see the violet-sprinkled sod, 
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills 

The air with sweetness; all the hills 
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; 
But still I wait with ear and eye 
For something gone which should be nigh, 
A loss in all familiar things, 1 
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 
And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old? 
Safe in thy immortality, 

What change can reach the wealth I hold? 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me? 
And while in life's late afternoon, 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 

Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are; 
And when the sunset gates unbar, 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 



SNOW-BOUND 147 

And, white against the evening star, 
The welcome of thy beckoning hand? 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 

The master of the district school 1 

Held at the fire his favored place; 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 

Born the wild Northern hills among, 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 

By patient toil subsistence scant, 

Not competence and yet not want, 

He early gained the power to pay 

His cheerful, self-reliant way; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town; 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach, 

Where all the droll experience 2 found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round, 

The moonlit skater's keen delight, 



148 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 
The rustic party/ with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, 
His winter task a pastime made. 
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 
Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding yarn, 
Or mirth-provoking versions told 
Of classic legends rare and old, 
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 
Had all the commonplace of home, 
And little seemed at best the odds 
'Twixt Yankee peddlers and old gods; 
Where Pindus-born Arachthus 2 took 
The guise of any grist-mill brook, 
And dread Olympus 3 at his will 
Became a huckleberry hill. 
A careless boy that night he seemed; 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisely schemed, 
And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed, — of such as he 
Shall Freedom's young apostles be 



SNOW-BOUND 149 

Who, following in War's bloody trail, 

Shall every lingering wrong assail; 

All chains from limb and spirit strike, 

Uplift the black and white alike; 

Scatter before their swift advance 

The darkness and the ignorance, 

The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 

Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 

Made murder pastime, and the hell 

Of prison-torture possible; 

The cruel lie of caste refute, 

Old forms remold, and substitute 

For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 

For blind routine, wise-handed skill; 

A school-house plant 1 on every hill, 

Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 

The quick wires of intelligence; 

Till North and South together brought 

Shall own the same electric thought, 

In peace a common flag salute, 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry, 

Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest 2 that winter night 
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 



150 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, 

Strong, self-concentered, spurning guide, 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; 
And under low brows, black with night, 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light; 

The sharp heat-lightnings 1 of her face 

Presaging ill to him whom Fate 

Condemned to share her love or hate. 

A woman tropical, intense 

In thought and act, in soul and sense, 

She blended in a like degree 

The vixen and the devotee, 

Revealing with each freak of feint 

The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 2 

The raptures of Siena's saint. 3 



SNOW-BOUND 151 

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 

Had facile power to form a fist; 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 

Were never safe from wrath's surprise. 

Brows saintly calm and lips devout 

Knew every change of scowl and pout; 

And the sweet voice had notes more high 

And shrill for social battle-cry. 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon * 

With claims fantastic as her own, 

Her tireless feet have held their way; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 

She watches under Eastern skies, 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, 
The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 

Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 

Where'er her troubled path may be, 



152 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

The Lord's sweet pity with her go! 
The outward wayward life we see, 

The hidden springs we may not know. . 
Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun, 

Through what ancestral years has run 
The sorrow with the woman born, 
What forged her cruel chain of moods, 
What set her feet in solitudes, 

And held the love within her mute, 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A lifelong discord and annoy, 

Water of tears with oil of joy, 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 
The tangled skein of will and fate, 
To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land, 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events; 

But He who knows our frame is just, 1 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 



SNOW-BOUND 153 

At last * the great logs, crumbling low, 

Sent out a dull and duller glow, 

The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 

Ticking its weary circuit through, 

Pointed with mutely-warning sign 

Its black hand to the hour of nine. 

That sign the pleasant circle broke: 

My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 

And laid it tenderly away, 

Then roused himself to safely cover 

The dull red brand with ashes over. 

And while, with care, our mother laid 

The work aside, her steps she stayed 

One moment, seeking to express 

Her grateful sense of happiness 

For food and shelter, warmth and health, 

And love's contentment more than wealth, 

With simple wishes (not the weak, 

Vain prayers which no fulfillment seek, 

But such as warm the generous heart, 

O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 

That none might lack, that bitter night, 

For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 

The wind that round the gables roared, 



154 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER 

With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The board-nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall; 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
They softened to the sound of streams, 
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 
And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 

Of merry voices high and clear; 
And saw the teamsters drawing near 
To break the drifted highways out. 
Down the long hillside treading slow 
We saw the half-buried oxen go, 
Shaking the snow from- heads uptost, 
Their straining nostrils white with frost. 
Before our door the straggling train 
Drew up, an added team to gain. 
The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 



SNOW-BOUND 155 

From lip to lip; the younger folks 
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, 
Then toiled again the cavalcade 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
And woodland paths that wound between 
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 
From every barn a team afoot, 
At every house a new recruit, 
Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 
Haply the watchful young men saw 
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
And curious eyes of merry girls, 
Lifting their hands in mock defense 
Against the snow-ball's compliments, 
And reading in each missive tost 1 
The charm which Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 

The wise old Doctor went his round, 

Just pausing at our door to say, 

In the brief autocratic way 

Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, 

Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. 



156 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER 

For, one in generous thought and deed, 
What mattered in the sufferer's sight 
The Quaker matron's inward light/ 

The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed? 2 

All hearts confess the saints elect 
Who, twain in faith, in love agree, 

And melt not in an acid sect 3 
The Christian pearl of charity! 

So days went on : a week had passed 
Since the great world was heard from lasto 
The Almanac we studied o'er, 
Read and reread our little store 
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score; 4 
One harmless novel, mostly hid 
From younger eyes, a book forbid, 
And poetry, (or good or bad, 
A single book was all we had,) 
Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 
A stranger to the heathen Nine, 5 
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 
The wars of David and the Jews. 
At last the floundering carrier bore 
The village paper G to our door. 
Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread; 



SNOW-BOUND 157 

In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvel that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft McGregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 
And up Taygetus winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 
A Turk's head at each saddle bow! 
Welcome to us its week-old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding bell and dirge of death; 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 
The latest culprit sent to jail; 
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street, 
The pulse of life that round us beat; 
The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more ! 

Clasp, Angel, of the backward look 



158 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER 

And folded wings of ashen gray 

And voice of echoes far away, 
The brazen covers of thy book; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past; 
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, 

Green hills of life that slope to death, 
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 
Shade off to mournful cypresses 

With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 
Importunate hours that hours succeed, 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids; 
I hear again the voice that bids 
The dreamer leave his dream midway 
For larger hopes and graver fears: 
Life greatens in these later years, 
The century's aloe flowers to-day! 

Yet, haply in some lull of life, 



SNOW-BOUND 159 

Some Truce of God 1 which breaks its strife, 
The worldling's eyes shall gather dew ; 

Dreaming in throngf ul city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew; 
And dear and early friends — the few 
Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth, 
And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze! 
And thanks untraced 2 to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
From unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond, 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; 
The traveler owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



NOTES 

THE RAVEN 

37, 1. Once upon : Though the poem opens with a phrase 
that reminds one of children's stories, which usually begin 
with " Once upon a time," the thought immediately shifts 
to a heavy, solemn tone. Look at the words in the first line 
suggesting this key-note: midnight, dreary, pondered, weak, 
weary. What later passages, by a whimsical tone of humor, 
somewhat relieve the intensely melancholy drift of the poem? 

2. Napping: Notice the n-sounds beginning successive 
words. This effect, common in poetry and in the headlines 
of sensational newspapers, is called alliteration. The word 
napping rhymes with tapping at the end of the line. Such 
rhyme is called internal. Alliteration and internal rhyme 
are two of the devices used often by Poe in the poem and 
showing plainly his craftsmanship. There is much to learn 
about the form of " The Raven." It is a lyric poem, i.e., 
one that aims not to tell a story but to express the inmost 
feelings of the author as he is influenced by the world about 
him. "Snow-Bound " is also personal, while "The Court- 
ship of Miles Standish " is an epic, a poem whose principal 
object is to tell a story in the form of verse. Poe's poem is 
written in six-line stanzas, of which the first and third lines 
have internal rhyme and the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth 
rhyme. A peculiarity in the rhyme scheme is that the middle 
of the fourth line rhymes with the end of the third. The 
sixth line is much the same in each stanza. The meter is 
unusual, but the lines are not difficult to scan. In each 
stanza, eight trochaic feet, which are complete or which lack 

161 



162 NOTES 

the last unaccented syllable, make up each line, except the 
sixth line. The sixth line has four trochaic feet, lacking the 
last unaccented syllable. What elisions or substitutions do 
you discover in the one hundred and eight lines of the poem? 

3. Bleak December : The poet seems to have selected this 
phrase as being more desolate than the " lonesome October" 
of " Ulalume," a poem on about the same general theme. 

4. Ghost: An interesting metaphor. Each stick of 
wood in the fire, burning almost out, threw a flickering shadow 
which the poet calls a ghost. 

5. Sought : The word was " tried " in The American Whig 
Review, February, 1845. Why is "sought" better in this 
place? 

38, 1. Lenore: This proper name is a favorite of Poe's. 
See for instance his poem, " Lenore," a stanza of which is 
as follows: 

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! 
Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; 
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? — weep now or never more! 
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! 
(Jonie! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! — 
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young — 
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young. 

The theme which appealed to this poet most was the idea 
of sorrow for a lost loved one. 

2. Purple curtain: There is a strange melodic fascination 
about the combination of sounds in this line, altogether 
apart from the sense. Compare a similar line in Mrs. 
Browning's " The Courtship of Lady Geraldine " : 

With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, a purple curtain. 

3. Darkness: The poetical condensation and the inverted 
word order of the poem cause some difficulty in understand- 
ing the ideas. Here the condensation is a source of trouble 
to some readers. The idea is that when the narrator opened 
the door, he saw nothing outside. It was entirely dark. 



THE RAVEN 163 

"Darkness " is therefore to be explained as used in an inde- 
pendent phrase, or as part of some such filled out sentence 
as, "I found darkness there." 

39. 1. Dreaming dreams: Can you imagine what these 
were? 

2. Stillness: Would "darkness," the word of an early 
edition, be better here? 

3. Turning : This participle modifies " I," in the next line. 

4. Again I heard: In the poem as first printed in The 
Evening Mirror the order was, " I heard again." Why did 
the poet change? 

5. Thereat is: Did you notice that this rhymes with 
" lattice," of the preceding line? 

40, 1 . A stately Raven : Possibly his reading of Dickens's 
Barnaby Rudge may have influenced Poe to introduce a 
raven into a poem, for in reviewing Dickens's story he ex- 
plained how Dickens might have made more of the " Grip " 
of that story. Have you ever heard a raven talk? 

2. Bust of Pallas: After he had written the poem, Poe 
analyzed it most minutely; he explained for instance that 
the reason he chose a bust for the bird to alight on was that 
this would give the effect of contrast between the marble and 
the plumage; and the reason he chose a bust of Pallas in 
particular was to show the classical scholarship of the lover 
and to secure a good sonorous sound. Pallas- Athene, the 
Greek goddess corresponding to the Roman Minerva, is 
represented as armed with helmet and spear, wearing on her 
breast the shield, given to her by Zeus, with a border of 
snakes and the head of Medusa in the center. She is often 
accompanied by an owl, the symbol of wisdom, for she was 
the goddess of wisdom, war, and the liberal arts. 

3. Ebony bird : Poe was a master of epithets. Consider 
what the word " ebony" suggests to your mind as used here. 

4. Plutonian shore : That is, regions of the lower world. 
Pluto, the brother of Zeus, was the god of darkness, ruler 
over the infernal regions. 



164 NOTES 

5. Nevermore : Poe asserts that he selected this word 
after the longest consideration and most thorough search 
as the one word that best expressed the central idea he wished 
to convey in the poem. As a matter of fact it is probable 
that he stumbled on the word by chance as one fitting in 
well with his general morbid feelings; already before he 
wrote this poem he had used the expression " no more " a num- 
ber of times in his poems. If by " theme " is meant some 
truth which may be stated in an abstract, general phrase, 
the theme of "The Raven" may be expressed in several 
ways, as desolation after the blighting of hope, sorrow for a 
lost loved one, unmerciful disaster of destiny, struggle with 
the inevitable, utter despair, or, as Poe himself put it, " mourn- 
ful and never-ending remembrance.' ' In any case, "never- 
more," whether chosen deliberately or not, seems to sum up 
the emotion. 

In the history of literature Poe plainly belongs to the 
romantic school of emotional poets like Coleridge and Shelley; 
but as is usual in American literature he was a score of years 
later in his time of production than were the English romantic 
poets to whom he was spiritually akin. In the particular 
phase of literature known as American, Poe stands alone, 
for he is different in tone and manner from the New England 
school of poets contemporary with him. 

6. To hear: That is, he wondered much that the raven 
could so plainly understand what was said to it. 

41, 1. Living human: "Sublunary" in early text. 

2. Placid bust: Does the word "placid" help to give 
significant meaning, or is it merely used to fill up the meter 
of the line? Compare "pallid bust," page 45, where the 
adjective gives an idea of dull whiteness in contrast to the 
ebony black of the bird. 

3. Then the bird said: " Quoth the raven" in early text. 

4. Startled: In order to gain the alliterative effect the 
poet changed "wondering" of the early text to "startled." 
The word modifies " I " of the next line. 



THE RAVEN 165 

42, 1. Followed fast, etc.: The lines were originally, 

Followed fast and followed faster: so, when Hope he would adjure, 
Stern Despair returned, instead of the sweet Hope he dared adjure, 
That sad answer, Nevermore. 

2. Sad soul: The early text read "fancy," changed to 
"sad soul" for the sake of the alliteration and the added 
seriousness of the word sad. 

3. Grim, ungainly: There is a weird effect in this line by 
the heaping up of melancholy, harsh-sounding adjectives. 

4. Velvet: Whether the width of appeal to the senses on 
pages 42 and 43 was intentional or accidental no one can 
tell. Certain it is that the range is extraordinary. The 
word "velvet" on page 42 gives the sense of touch; "vio- 
let" on page 43, the sense of sight; "perfumed," the sense, 
of smell; " tinkled," the sense of hearing; "nepenthe," the 
sense of taste. Is there anything like this elsewhere in 
American poetry? How could footfalls tinkle on a carpet? 

43, 1. Seraphim. The line originally read, 

Swung by angels whose faint footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. 

2. "Wretch": The narrator is talking to himself. 

3. Nepenthe: An ancient drug used to give relief from 
sorrow or pain. 

4. Evil: Almost mechanically perfect, the poem shows 
a flaw or two, as the faulty rhyme in this line. 

5. Balm in Gilead : A valuable gum of healing properties 
referred to in Jeremiah viii, 22: " For the hurt of the daughter 
of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath 
taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no 
physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter 
of my people recovered? " As used by Poe, the expression 
means comfort, healing, relief from distress and desola- 
tion. 

44, 1. That God, we: That God [whom] we. The omis- 
sion of the relative pronoun, common in the colloquial style, 



166 NOTES 

is not infrequent in condensed poetry. What other collo- 
quialisms appear in the poem, and what is their effect? 

2. Aidenn: For Eden. 

3. Rare and radiant : Compare a line in the second stanza. 

4. Beak from out my heart: Poe speaks of these words 
as the first metaphorical expression in the poem. 

45, 1. Demon's: The earlier reading was "demon." 
2. Lamp-light: In answer to the criticism on this line, 
that the lamp could not throw the shadow of the bird on the 
floor, Poe says: "My conception was that of the bracket 
candelabrum affixed against the wall, high up above the door 
and bust, as is often seen in the English palaces, and even in 
some of the better houses of New York " 

THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 

47, 1. In the Old Colony days: Beginning with a fairly 
definite time reference, followed by a definite place reference 
and the mention of a historical person, Longfellow suggests 
at once the atmosphere of his poem, and puts the reader in 
the frame of mind to follow the narrative of events in the 
life of Captain Miles Standish of Plymouth Colony. The 
poem, being narrative, is thus seen at the start to belong to 
the general class called epic, to which belong such poems as 
Longfellow's " Hiawatha " and " Evangeline," Scott's " Lady 
of the Lake," and Byron's " Prisoner of Chillon." Compare 
note 37, 2. 

2. Cordovan : In the Spanish town of Cordova the manu- 
facture of goatskin leather was an important industry. 

3. Miles Standish: The Plymouth captain, a real person 
of history, though the first character introduced into the 
poem is not for that reason necessarily the hero, even though 
the poem takes his name for its title. Yet, if by hero is 
meant, in the study of literature, the central male character 
of a story, i.e., the character around whom the action of the 
narrative centers, surely Standish is the hero of this poem, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 167 

for his proxy courtship is the basis for the story and his 
actions give structure to the poem. 

As a matter of history, Captain Standish was thirty-six 
years old when the Mayflower reached Plymouth, but the 
poet, using history for the purpose of literary art, makes the 
Puritan captain seem older than thirty-six. Near the site 
of Standish' s house at Duxbury, near Plymouth (in Massa- 
chusetts), there has been erected a monument 110 feet high, 
surmounted by a statue. 

The historical basis for the poem can be easily under- 
stood from the following extract from Anderson's Grammar 
School History of the United States : 

" The first permanent settlement of New England was by 
a small band of Pilgrims, dissenters from the Church of Eng- 
land, who had fled from their own country to find an asylum 
from religious persecution. They were known in England as 
Puritans. 

" They at first went to Amsterdam, in Holland, whence 
they removed to Leyden. At Leyden they lived eleven years 
in great harmony, under the pastoral care of John Robinson; 
but, from various causes, they became dissatisfied with their 
residence, and desired to plant a colony in America, where 
they might enjoy their civic and religious rights without 
molestation. 

" As many as could be accommodated embarked on board 
a vessel called the Speedwell. The ship sailed to Southamp- 
ton, England, where she was joined by another ship called 
the Mayflower, with other Pilgrims from London. The two 
vessels set sail, but had not gone far before the Speedwell 
was found to need repairs, and they entered the port of Dart- 
mouth, England. A second time they started, but again put 
back — this time to Plymouth, where the Speedwell was 
abandoned as unseaworthy. 

" The Mayflower finally sailed alone, with about one hun- 
dred passengers, the most distinguished of whom were John 
Carver, William Brewster, Miles Standish, William Bradford, 



168 NOTES 

and Edward Winslow. After a boisterous passage they 
reached Cape Cod Bay; and there, in the cabin of the May- 
flower, they signed a compact for their government, and 
unanimously elected Carver Governor for one year. 

" Several days were spent in searching for a favorable 
locality At length, on the 21st of December, 1620, they 
landed at a place which they called Plymouth, in memory 
of the hospitalities which had been bestowed upon them at 
the last English port from which they had sailed. The 
winter was severe, and in less than five months nearly half 
of that Pilgrim band died from the effects of exposure and 
privations, Carver and his wife being among the number. 
Bradford was thereupon elected Governor, and he continued 
during thirty years to be a prominent man in the Colony." 

48, 1. Sword of Damascus: Since the poem deals with 
real and fictitious incidents of nearly three .hundred years 
ago, it is natural that there should be in the descriptions a 
number of unfamiliar terms. Standish's weapons and armor 
need explanation: the cutlass was a short, curved sword; the 
corselet, a breastplate of armor; sword of Damascus, a sword 
made of the fine steel for which the Syrian city of Damascus 
was famous — such swords were often inscribed with a 
sentence from the Koran; fowling-piece, a light gun for 
shooting birds; musket, a war gun which was in colonial 
times fired by means of a slow-match of twisted rope, but 
which is now fired by a spring lock; matchlock, originally the 
lock of a musket, but later the gun itself. Some of the other 
peculiar words found in the poem will be defined, but many 
will be left for the ingenuity and the patience of the student 
to master in an unabridged dictionary like Webster's Inter- 
national, the Century, the Standard, or, so far as completed, 
t^e invaluable New English Dictionary, probably the best 
dictionary ever made in any language. 

2. Curved at the : There has been much adverse criticism 
of Longfellow's meter, as being monotonous in its easy swing. 
Yet it is really this easy motion that makes the poem so 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 169 

fascinating as it is to persons just learning the pleasures of 
Toetry. The lines have six accents, the number of unac- 
cented syllables varying. In general the feet, except for the 
sixth, are dactylic; the sixth is trochaic. Yet the variations 
from dactylic in the first five feet are sufficiently numerous 
to prevent the poem from being monotonously regular. The 
ninth line is an example of the normal meter — five dactylic 
feet followed by one trochaic, six accents in all; but this is 
the first entirely normal line in the poem, for in each of the 
first eight lines there are some substitutions for dactylic 
feet, usually trochaic feet. 

3. John Alden : Twenty-one years old when the colony 
was founded. 

49, 1. Not Angles: The Angles were one of the Germanic 
tribes that emigrated from the Continent to England; they 
gave their name to England. English historians are fond of 
telling the story to which Longfellow alludes. It is enter- 
tainingly told in the following extract from Merrill's English 
History : 

" It was in the year 597 that the first missionaries to the 
Saxons landed in Britain. They were sent by Pope Gregory 
the Great. Before he became Pope his pity had been moved 
by the sight of some Saxon children, sold for slaves in the 
market-place of Rome. ' Who are these beautiful boys? ' 
asked Gregory; ' and are they Christian children? ' ' No,' 
said the slave-merchant; ' they are Angles, and come from a 
heathen land.' Gregory was grieved and answered, ' If they 
were Christians, they would be angels, not Angles' (NonAngli, 
sed Angeli)." 

2. scribe: Frequently Longfellow employs a curiously 
involved word order which obscures the syntax of his sen- 
tence. In cases of doubt about his meaning, put the sen- 
tence into natural prose word order, and the difficulty will 
vanish; as for instance, here: Suddenly breaking the silence, 
Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth, interrupting the 
diligent scribe, spoke in the pride of his heart. By this 



1 70 NOTES 

change, it becomes apparent instantly that " scribe " is the 
object of the participle " interrupting." It would be a pity- 
to spend much time on the grammar of this poem except in 
such cases as the above, where the solution of the grammatical 
puzzle at once clears up the meaning. 

3. Flanders: The Netherlands. Compare the adjective 
Flemish, pages 49 and 159. 

4. Arcabucero : Spanish word for archer, here meaning 
musketeer. By scanning the line, you can readily determine 
the pronunciation of the difficult word. 

50, 1. ''Truly the breath," etc.: Compare Psalms xxxiii, 
6 and 20. 

2. Serve yourself: By Standish's first few speeches the 
poet conveys a distinct idea of the kind of man the captain 
was. Vivid characterization is a leading merit of the poem. 
The early introduction of the famous short, wise saying or 
adage of Captain Standish produces a humorous effect when 
the reader comes to what follows. This frolicsome humor 
shown in the poem is another of its merits, for truly the 
Pilgrim life was not all gloom. 

3. Rest : A support for the gun when being fired. 

51, 1. Laughed: Why did he laugh? 

2. Preacher: The figure of speech by which the poet 
speaks of a howitzer, or small cannon, as a preacher is called 
metaphor. What other implied comparisons do you notice 
in the poem? 

3. Sagamore: What is the effect of the introduction of 
the Indian words and names ? A sagamore was a leader of 
one of the subdivisions of a tribe; a sachem, the chief of a 
tribe; a pow-wow, a medicine-man or conjuror. Aspinet, Sa- 
moset, etc., were real names mentioned in early chronicles of 
Plymouth. 

4. Forest: Syntax? 

52, 1. Three: The condensation of poetry has already 
been mentioned, 38, 3. How do you explain the construc- 
tion of " three "? 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 171 

53, 1. Barriffe's Artillery Guide : Colonel William Barriffe, 
a Puritan soldier, wrote a book entitled Militarie Discipline; 
or, The Young Artillery Man. 

2. Commentaries of Caesar: Not knowing Latin, the 
captain read in a translation by an English scholar the com- 
mentaries written by Julius Caesar on his wars with the Gauls. 
The account of the battle alluded to is in Section 10 of the 
second book of Caesar's commentaries. 

3. Thumb-marks thick: Alliteration. 

54, 1. Homeward bound : The time when the chief events 
of the poem happened is exactly fixed by this historical 
reference. The Mayflower sailed homeward April 5, 1621. 

55, 1. ' Better be first,' etc.: This is a fact of history, as 
can be verified by referring to Plutarch's life of Caesar. 
Iberian means Spanish. 

56, 1. Nothing was heard, etc.: Is the repetition of this 
line a blemish? 

57, 1. Priscilla: Can you imagine to whom Alden was 
writing the letters, and what he said in them about Priscilla? 
Note the poet's method of introducing the name of the heroine 
of the poem by intimating that Alden is in love with her. 

58, 1. The Scriptures: See Genesis ii, 18. 

2. Alone in the world: " Mr Molines, and his wife, his 
sone and his servant, dyed the first winter. Only his daugh- 
ter Priscilla survived and married with John Alden, who are 
both living and have 11 children." (Bradford's History of 
Plymouth Plantation.) 

59, 1. Taciturn: Reserved, silent. Used in its original 
sense as derived from the Latin. 

60, 1. Just as a timepiece: So many comparisons occur 
in the poem that before the end the effect is tiresome. The 
poet seems to strain after comparisons. What others do you 
discover? 

2. Maxim: Observe on pages 50 and 124 a word equiva- 
lent to " maxim." 

62, 1. So the strong will prevailed. Compare page 61. 



172 NOTES 

2. Hanging gardens: An allusion to the hanging gardens 
of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world. Does 
Longfellow's nature description seem to have the real spirit 
of the woods, or does it seem written from the library? 

63, 1. Followed the flying feet: Is this a hint that Alden 
loved Priscilla before the Pilgrims left England? 

2. Astaroth . . . Baal: Ashtoreth was goddess of love, and 
Baal the chief god in the Phoenician worship referred to in 
Judges ii, 13, 1 Samuel xii, 10, and 1 Kings xi, 1-5. Note 
Alden 's Puritanical repression of his own natural emotions. 

64, 1 . Children : Metaphor. The poet speaks of the may- 
flowers as children lost in the woods. 

65, 1. Carded wool: In the process of spinning, the wool 
was first picked clear of specks and burs. Then it was carded, 
that is, combed out into straight lengths, the card being 
something like the currycomb used in cleaning horses. After 
being carded, the wool was pure white. 

2. Old Puritan anthem: In the picture of colonial life the 
poet has introduced here a most characteristic touch. The 
Psalms, strong and rugged in words and music, were what 
the Pilgrims liked in their meeting-houses and in their home 
singing. That stirring exhortation to praise the Lord, viz., 
the hundredth Psalm, with music going back to the time of 
Luther, the German reformer, was a favorite song as trans- 
lated by Henry Ainsworth. Persecuted in England, Ains- 
worth in 1590 fled to Holland. Many of his commentaries 
and translations were " Imprinted at Amsterdam." 

66, 1. Life: Syntax? 

2. Hand to the plow: Luke ix, 62. 

3. Mercy endureth forever: Jeremiah xxxiii, 11. 

72, 1. Hugh Standish: Compare pag3 123. A paragraph 
from Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims throws light on Long- 
fellow's allusion to the ancestry of Miles Standish: "There 
are at this time in England two ancient families of the name, 
one of Standish Hall, and the other of Duxbury Park, both 
in Lancashire, who trace their descent from a common 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAN DISH 173 

ancestor, Ralph de Standish, living in 1221. There seems 
always to have been a military spirit in the family. Frois- 
sart, relating in his Chronicles the memorable meeting between 
Richard II and Wat Tyler, says that after the rebel was 
struck from his horse by William Walworth, ' then a squyer 
of the kynges alyted, called John Standysshe, and he drewe 
out his sworde, and put into Wat Tyler's belye, and so he 
dyed/ For this act Standish was knighted. In 1415 an- 
other Sir John Standish fought at the battle of Agincourt. 
From his giving the name of Duxbury to the town where he 
settled, near Plymouth, and calling his eldest son Alexander 
(a. common name in the Standish family) I have no doubt 
that Miles was a scion from this ancient and warlike stock.' ' 
2. Family arms : Longfellow's description of the Standish 
family arms is difficult, for the words used in heraldry are 
strange. The coat of arms consisted of crest, shield, and 
motto. The crest was the ornament worn above the shield 
on the helmet. In the Standish coat of arms the crest was 
a cock argent, i.e., silver in color except for the comb, which 
was the fleshly tuft growing on the cock's head, and the 
wattle, which was the fleshly wrinkled excrescence growing 
under the throat of the cock. Both comb and wattle were 
gules, that is, red. The rest of the blazon, or coat of arms, 
is not given. 

73, 1. " Why don't you speak for yourself, John? " This 
question has been so often quoted that it has become a part 
of the language and is often used by persons who when they 
employ it have no consciousness of its source in this poem. 

74, 1. John Alden: The first character in this part is 
John Alden. See the similar opening of Parts II, III, and 
VI. Because of this putting of Alden to the front and letting 
him win the hand of Priscilla, some critics call him the hero 
of the poem. 

2. Apocalyptical splendors: That is, glories described by 
St. John in the Book of Revelation. See especially Revela- 
tion xxi, 10, 11, and 15. 



174 NOTES 

75, 1. Dulse: A kind of sea-weed. Other words having 
the flavor of old New England days are: " merestead " and 
"glebe," page 113. 

2. David's trangression : See 2 Samuel xi and xii. 

77, 1. Walls of its waters: See the story of the escape of 
the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, Exodus xiii and xiv, 
especially the twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the 
fourteenth chapter. 

2. Her: Syntax? 

78, 1. Seven houses: What other details do you notice 
descriptive of Plymouth? Try to form as distinct a picture 
as possible. 

2. Hainault or Brabant : Counties of the Netherlands. 

79, 1. Sped: That is, prospered, succeeded. 

80, 1. Wat Tyler: See note 72, 1. Observe how Standish 
in his anger contemptuously compares Alden with the traitor 
Wat Tyler. 

2. You, too, Brutus: For this allusion consult Shake- 
speare's Julius Ccesar. What have you observed thus far 
regarding the nature and range of Longfellow's allusions? 

81, 1. Alden was left alone: The sentence length is here 
skilfully varied. Be observant of such variations. 

2. Father who seeth in secret: Matthew vi, 4. 

82, 1. The hill: Metaphor. Elder Brewster is spoken 
of as a snow-covered hill near to heaven. Brewster was 
the ruling elder of the Plymouth church and preached 
when John Robinson, the teaching elder or pastor, was ab- 
sent. 

2. The chronicles old : In this case the old chronicle con- 
taining the sentence about the sifting of three kingdoms is 
an election sermon of 1668 by Stoughton. 

3. The skin : Actually the incident occurred in 1622, when 
Canonicus, a chief of the Narragansett tribe, sent an Indian 
named Tisquantum to Governor Bradford with a rattlesnake 
skin filled with arrows. The latter returned it filled with 
powder and bullets. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 175 

83, 1. Voice of the Elder : John Robinson. The incident is 
historical. 

85, 1. A stir and a sound : The first forty lines of Part V are 
a general description of the actions of the Plymouth people 
on the morning of the sailing of the Mayflower; the particular 
courtship story is resumed on page 88. 

2. Mighty men of King David : 2 Samuel xxiii, 8. 

86, 1. Serried: Are you interested in Longfellow's vivid, 
specific words? 

87, 1. Beautiful were his feet: Adapted from the seventh 
verse of Chapter lii of Isaiah. 

88, 1. In the desert: Compare page 103. 

90, 1. Spake: Archaic for spoke. What is the purpose in 
the use of archaic words in the poem? 

2. Stephen and Richard and Gilbert : Their last names were 
Hopkins, Warren, and Winslow. 

3. Plymouth Rock: Consult note on the fourth line of the 
poem. At the present time in Plymouth a fragment of this 
flat granite rock is enclosed by a railing and protected by a 
canopy; the rock itself is covered by a wharf. 

4. Master: Captain. 

91, 1. Gunwale: Are you interested in this and in the 
other technical nautical words — "thwarts" and "keel," 
page 91; "windlass," "yards," and " braced," page 94? 

92, 1. " Here I remain " : Do you call this the climax of 
the poem? 

94, 1. Set his hand: See note 66, 2. 

2. The Gurnet: Gurnet's Nose is a headland at the en- 
trance of Plymouth harbor. 

3. Field of the First Encounter : The poet's appropriation 
of phrases from old chronicles is well illustrated here. A 
scouting party of Pilgrims landed from the Mayflower ahead 
of the rest. In Bradford and Winslow's journal quoted in 
Young's Chronicles there is mention of an engagement be- 
tween this scouting party and a band of Indians: " So after 
we had given God thanks for our deliverance, we took our 



17G NOTES 

shallop and went on our journey, and called this place The 
First Encounter." 

95, 1. Took courage: Acts xxviii, 15. 

96, 1. Spirit of God: Genesis i, 2: " And the earth was 
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of 
the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." How do you account for Longfellow's making so 
many quotations from the Bible? 

99, 1. "No! " In reading Part VI aloud, boys and girls 
seem hugely to enjoy making this "No" very emphatic. 

100, 1. Like the beautiful rivers: Adapted from Genesis 
ii, 10. 

104, 1. Direful wrath: Compare Homer's Iliad, line 1: 

Sing, O muse, the direful wrath of Achilles. 

2. Manner was changed: In writing on the character of 
Priscilla, include mention of her fascinating changes in 
manner. 

3. Holy Land: An allusion to the journeyings of the 
Crusaders to the sepulchre of the Saviour. 

107, 1. Friendship was, etc.: An interesting sentence, in 
which emphasis is gained by the word order. 

2. Goliath . . . Og: 1 Samuel xvii, 4, and Deuteronomy 
iii, 11. 

3. Wampum: Beads made by North American Indians 
from colored shells. 

108, 1. Wattawamat: "Among the rest Wituwamat 
bragged of the excellency of his knife. On the end of the 
handle there was pictured a woman's face: 'but,' said he, 
' 1 have another at home wherewith I have killed both French 
and English, and that hath a man's face on it, and by and 
by these two must marry.' Further he said of that knife he 
there had, Hinnaim namen, hinnaim michen, matta cuts; 
that is to say, By and by it should see, and by and by it 
should eat, but not speak. Also Pecksuot, being a man of 
greater stature than the captain, told him, though he were a 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH 177 

great captain, yet he was but a little man; and, said he, 
* though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength 
and courage.' " (Winslow's Relation of Standish's Expedi- 
tion.) 

110, 1. The boaster: That is, Pecksuot. 

Ill,- 1. Oat of the lightning thunder: Light travels faster 
than sound. 

2. Hobomok: " Hobbamock stood by all this time as a 
spectator, and meddled not, observing how our men de- 
meaned themselves in this action. All being here ended, 
smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Captain: 
4 Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and 
stature, said, though you were a great captain, yet you were 
but a little man; but to-day I see that you are big enough to 
lay him on the ground.' " (Winslow's Relation.) The poet 
has shortened the time; in the poem no day intervenes 
between the insult and the blow. 

113, 1. The ships . . . came: This is another definite 
historical reference dating the time when the imaginary 
incidents of the poem are supposed to have occurred and 
helping to determine the amount of time elapsing in the 
narrative. The ships, Anne and Little James, arrived at 
Plymouth in August, 1623. 

2. Waxing valiant in fight : Hebrews xi, 34. 

114, 1. To this day: The descendants of John Alden still 
own the land where his house stood in Duxbury, on the 
Massachusetts coast, thirty-eight miles southeast of Boston. 
On the old homestead site the Alden descendants gather from 
many parts of the country each year for a family reunion. 

115, 1. In the Proverbs: See the portion of the thirty- 
first chapter of Proverbs descriptive of the virtuous woman. 

117, 1. Bertha . . . Helvetia: Bertha, the housewifely 
queen of a Burgundian king whose territory included Hel- 
vetia (Switzerland), is represented on monuments as seated 
on her throne in the act of spinning. 

120, 1. Put them asunder: Adapted from the Biblical 



178 NOTES 

sentence, " What therefore God hath joined together, let 
not man put asunder," found in Matthew xix, 6, and Mark x, 9. 

121, 1. The sun : Compare the description of the sun, page 
87. See also the description of the high priest in the Bible 
— Exodus xxviii, 34-36. 

2. That of Ruth and of Boaz : Ruth iv, 11 and 12. 

122, 1. Laudable custom of Holland: Longfellow quotes 
the phrase from Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation: 
11 May 12 was the first marriage in this place, which, accord- 
ing to the laudable custome of the Low- Countries, in which 
they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed 
by the magistrate, as being a civil thing, upon which many 
questions aboute inheritances doe depende, with other things 
most proper to their cognizans, and most consonante to the 
scripturs, Ruth iv, and no wher found in the gospell to be 
layed on the ministers as a part of their office." 

123, 1. Rack: Vapor. 

124, 1. Kent: A county in the southern part of England. 

127, 1. Pleased with the image: What other instances 
have you found where the poet has attributed the emotions 
of men to inanimate objects? 

2. Valley of Eshcol: Numbers xiii, 23. 

128, 1. Rebecca and Isaac: Genesis xxiv, 64. 

2. Old and yet ever new: The simple themes drawn from 
the universal experiences of men are the ones that in litera- 
ture are the most popular. That is one reason why Long- 
fellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish" has been so widely 
read. It is a true picture of colonial days in New England, 
but more than this it is a narrative of human experiences 
that seem true to nature no matter whether the Puritan life 
is understood by the reader or not. 



SNOW-BOUND 179 

SNOW-BOUND 

129, 1. A Winter Idyl: In form, Whittier's poem, like 
Foe's and unlike Longfellow's, is personal. It aims not to tell 
a particular story, but to give a picture of the life of Whittier's 
family during a winter storm. In presenting this specific 
picture, the poet has been so true to family life that for two 
generations men everywhere who have been familiar with 
rustic scenes and people have exclaimed on the reality of 
Whittier's description. Aiming to describe just what he 
knew himself, his own household, he has succeeded in making 
a description that seems universal. Yet he has chosen to 
depict his characters in action rather than at rest. Since the 
family was kept indoors by the snow, it seems natural that 
the idyl should cover several days, as it does; the main action 
covers three days with the two intervening nights, but the 
whole time mentioned is a week. Over four hundred of the 
seven hundred and fifty-nine lines of the poem are, however, 
devoted to the characterization of the family gathered about 
the " clean- winged hearth," one evening. It is an ideal 
picturing of the life of an old-fashioned country home. This 
poem, then, called by Whittier a winter idyl and often referred 
to as a pastoral poem, may be considered lyric in character. 

The versification is simple. Most of the lines are regular 
iambic tetrameter, rhyming in couplets. Occasionally the 
lines begin with a trochaic instead of with an iambic foot, 
and there are infrequent substitutions for iambic feet in other 
parts of a line, as on page 141, where the second foot of the 
twelfth line is a spondee. Occasionally, too, three lines in 
succession, as on page 133, rhyme; or there is a line which 
jumps over a couplet to rhyme with the line that follows the 
couplet, for instance, drew, low, snow, and through, on page 
132. The student will discover for himself a few other 
irregularities in the rhyme scheme. There has been adverse 
criticism of the nature of the rhymes. The ears of critics are 
offended by such harsh rhymes as on and sun } page 131; 



180 NOTES 

breath and path, page 132; mute and foot, page 133. But in 
both meter and rhyme the poem is for the most part simple 
and pleasing. 

2. Occult philosophy: What is the use of introducing the 
poem by such a quotation as this? 

3. That brief December day: From this time reference 
are you misled into thinking that the poem will be a story? 

130, 1. Homespun stuff: Compare page 139. The poet 
explains in a brief autobiographical letter, written in 1882, 
that his mother, in addition to her ordinary house duties, kept 
busy spinning and weaving the linen and woolen cloth 
needed in the family. 

2. Coming: As in "The Raven" and "The Courtship," 
when a sentence seems difficult to understand it is well to 
try turning the words into an ordinary prose order; for 
example, told the coming of the snow-storm. Try this with 
any sentences that puzzle you at your first reading. After 
thus re-phrasing the sentences, you will be ready to express 
an opinion concerning the simplicity or the complexity, the 
clearness or the obscurity, of Whittier's sentences. You will 
know whether to call Whittier a smooth, cultured writer or 
an unpolished, homespun poet. 

3. -Heard the roar: The Whittier home, a short walk 
from Haverhill on the road to Salisbury, in the northeastern 
corner of Massachusetts, was within sound of the sea. 

4. Stanchion: The description of the barn is wonderfully 
vivid. It strikes so many chords of memory that no matter 
how many times the person who has seen such places reads 
the description he thrills with enjoyment of the memories. 
Are you familiar with all the words used in the description ? 

5. Crested: Compare note 72, 2. 

6. Querulous : Poets often assign to inanimate objects or 
to the lower animals the emotions and thoughts of men. 
Here Whittier has used subjective description in saying that 
the cock sent a querulous challenge. Is the same true of 
"lusty greeting," on page 133? 



SNOW-BOUND 181 

131, 1. Like . . . ghosts: Likening the clothes-line posts 
to ghosts, Whittier has used a simile, while Poe in line 8 of 
" The Raven," likening the ember to a ghost, used a metaphor. 
What difference do you notice between simile and metaphor? 
Some of Whittier's figures of speech, like some of Longfellow's 
notable sentences, have become a part of the popular language 
and are used familiarly without consciousness of their origin. 

2. Spherule : If you were describing a snow-storm, 
would you use such words as " spherule, " "geometric," 
"pellicle," and "meteor"? Since Whittier had little school- 
ing, are you not surprised that he knew such words? How 
do you suppose he learned them, and what do they mean? 

132, 1. Mound: Attribute complement of "showed." 
What difference did the snow make in the appearance of 
familiar objects near the house ? 

2. Pisa's leaning miracle : Seven miles from the mouth 
of the river Arno in Italy, is the city of Pisa, best known the 
world over for its strange leaning tower built in 1350. The 
tower, 179 feet high, is 24 feet off the perpendicular; the 
cause of the leaning was perhaps an earthquake during the 
building of the tower, but Prof. W. H. Goodyear of Brook- 
lyn declares that it was built originally as it now stands. 

3. Our father: The brisk characterization of the father in 
this poem and the appreciative characterizations of the other 
members of the household show the absurdity of such sweep- 
ing condemnation of Whittier as this by one critic: "His 
characters, where he introduces such, are commonly abstrac- 
tions with little of the flesh and blood of real life in them." 
In "Snow-Bound," at least, Whittier has presented real 
persons, not abstractions. 

4. Buskins: Foot-coverings extending half-way to the 
knee. Several hundred years before Whittier's time, the 
word buskin was used to describe the high-heeled, thick- 
soled shoes worn by tragic actors. 

5. Aladdin's wondrous cave : Old and young, school-boys 
and learned scholars, enjoy the tales of the Arabian nights. 



* 



1 82 NOTES 

The one referred to by Whittier tells about the wonderful 
/limp of Aladdin. 

133, 1. Amun: Amnion, an Egyptian god often repre- 
sented as a ram. 

2. Church-bell: In his autobiographical letter, Whittier 
says that the sound of the two church-bells of Haverhill 
could be heard in the lonely homestead on Sundays. 

3. Solitude: Syntax? 

134, 1. Minded: Regarded with attention, noticed, 
observed. 

2. Buried brooklet: In his prose works Whittier often 
refers to the little brook that ran near the farmhouse. Here 
is one of his descriptions: " Our old homestead nestled under 
a long range of hills which stretched off to the west. It was 
surrounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast 
where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low green 
meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes 
of upland. Through these a small brook, noisy enough as it 
foamed, rippled, and laughed down its rocky falls by our 
garden-side, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still 
larger stream, known as the Country Brook. This brook in 
its turn, after doing duty at two or three saw and grist mills, 
the clack of which we could hear in still days across the inter- 
vening woodlands, found its way to the great river [the Merri- 
mac], and the river took up and bore it down to the great sea 
[the Atlantic Ocean]." (From "The Fish I Didn't Catch.") 

3. Wooded knolls : See note 134, 2. 

135, 1. Crane . . . trammels: The "crane" was the 
horizontal arm to which hooks called "trammels" were 
attached for holding kettles or other vessels over the fire in 
the open fireplace. 

2. Andirons : Iron horizontal supports on which the 
sticks or logs rested. "Andirons" were often wrought out 
into fantastic shapes, such as heads of Turks. 

136, 1. Clean-winged hearth: Though familiar to grand- 
fathers of Yankee origin, such expressions as this are entirely 



SNOW-BOUND 183 

outside the experience of young people of to-day and conse- 
quently need explanation. In olden days the wing of a fowl, 
usually a turkey wing, was placed beside the hearth for brush- 
ing back the ashes and keeping the hearth clean. 

2. Frost-line : Have you ever seen how the fire even in a 
coal-stove will gradually dissipate the frost on a window- 
pane? 

3. Silhouette : In the description of the scene around the 
hearth, what bookish words and what homely, colloquial 
words does the poet use? The difficulties of Whittier's vo- 
cabulary are caused by the use either of somewhat bookish 
words or of homely words descriptive of a life fast fading 
away. It is interesting to collect examples of both kinds of 
Whittier's words. 

4. Meet: Suitable. What does this adjective modify? 

5. Brown October's: A phrase reminiscent of the old 
ballads of which Whittier was fond. 

137, 1. Thou: Whittier was a Quaker. See page 21. 

2. Voices of that hearth are still: Compare note 146, 1. 
This tone of memory, this expression of long-gathered emo- 
tions, this personal element, makes the poem clearly lyric 
rather than epic. 

3. Cypress-trees : Symbols of mourning. The lines might 
be paraphrased thus: That person is to be pitied who in his 
mourning cannot see hope beyond in heaven. 

138, 1. Marbles: Marble monuments in a cemetery. 

2. Sped the time: Pages 138-153 give the stories told 
around the fire. 

3. " The chief of Gambia's," etc. This line is from a poem 
by Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton, which appeared in Caleb 
Bingham's The American Preceptor, a popular school-book of 
the time. 

4. Slavery's shaping hand : Compare page 149. Regard- 
ing Whittier's part in the anti-slavery movement, see page 22. 
A few years after the publication of " Snow-Bound, " the poet 
edited the journal of John Woolman, a Quaker who before 



184 NOTES 

the Revolutionary War wrote quaintly but eloquently against 
slavery. The italicized lines which Whittier says were like a 
trumpet call are from a poem by Mrs. Mercy Warren, wife of 
a Revolutionary patriot of Massachusetts. 

5. Memphremagog : This lake, the name of which means 
11 beautiful water," lies one-fifth in Vermont and four-fifths 
in Canada. It is described by Baedeker as enclosed by rocky 
shores and wooded hills. 

6. Samp : Coarse hominy. A word like this helps to re- 
produce the atmosphere of the curious stories of travel told 
by the father. 

7. St. Francois' : Lake St. Francis is an expansion of the 
St. Lawrence River. At the bottom of page 138 and the top 
of page 139 are given the father's memories of his Canadian 
horseback journey, when he camped with trappers and Indians 
and enjoyed the life in the French-Canadian villages. 

8. Norman cap and bodiced zone : Descriptions of the 
head-gear and dresses of. the French-Canadian dancers. 

139, 1. Salisbury's level marshes: The salt marshes of 
Salisbury are over the New Hampshire line, but are, like the 
Isles of Shoals where the father fished, near the Massachusetts 
farm of the Whittiers. 

2. Swept, scythe, etc. : An alliterative line. 

3. Boar's Head: A bluff on the New Hampshire coast, 
not far from the Whittier farm. The Isles of Shoals (see page 
25) are nine rocky islands off Boar's Head, frequented as 
summer resorts because of their pure sea-air and freedom 
from mosquitoes. 

140, 1. Cochecho town: The city of Dover, New Hamp- 
shire, settled in 1623, lies on the Cocheco River. 

2. She made us welcome : That is, she told the hearth- 
side group all about her early home. What lines give the 
mother's contribution to the talk? What idea do you form 
in your mind of the appearance and characteristics of the 
mother? 

3. Piscataqua: A New Hampshire river. 



SNOW-BOUND 185 

141, 1. Some tale she gave: Compare the nature of the 
tales told by the mother with those told by the father. 

2. Sewel's ancient tome: William Sewel was a Dutch 
Quaker whose History of the Quakers was translated into 
English and several times reprinted. 

3. Faith fire -winged : In the early days of the Quaker 
faith in England and the colonies, large numbers of its 
adherents were burned to death or hanged. 

4. Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint: Thomas Chalkley 
was a Quaker preacher who was born in 1675. The greater 
part of his life he spent in traveling about New England and 
the southern colonies preaching. The quaint character of 
his Journal, published in his seventy-second year, is evident 
in the following extract: "To stop their murmuring, I told 
them they should not need to cast lots, which was usual in 
such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely 
offer up my life to do them good. One said, ' God bless you! 
I will not eat any of you.' Another said he would die before 
he would eat any of me, and so said several. I can truly 
say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to 
me, and that I was serious and ingenuous in my proposition; 
and as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully 
considering my proposal to the company, and looking in my 
mind to Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up 
towards the top or surface of the water and looked me in the 
face; and I called the people to put a hook into the sea and 
take him, for here is one come to redeem me (I said to them). 
And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took 
it, and they caught him. He was longer than myself. I 
think he was about six feet long, and the largest that ever I 
saw. This plainly showed us that we ought not to distrust 
the providence of the Almighty. The people were quieted 
by this act of Providence, and murmured no more. We 
caught enough to eat plentifully of till we got into the capes 
of Delaware. " 

5. Offered: The subject is "Who," six lines above. 



186 NOTES 

6. Child of Abraham: Consult Genesis xxii, 13. 

7. Our uncle: How do the tales told by the uncle differ 
from those told by the mother and father? 

142, 1. Lyceum: Characteristic of the era in New Eng- 
land was the lyceum, a building or an association for the 
teaching of the people by public lectures. Many persons who 
had scanty opportunities for schooling were able to acquire 
a fair education by attendance at the lyceum and by reading. 
Whittier himself thus gained much. In his later years he 
became an enthusiastic patron of the Amesbury Lyceum; 
there such men as Beecher and Phillips lectured at his invi- 
tation. In recognition of his attainments he received, the 
year of the publication of "Snow-Bound," the Harvard 
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and three years later, in 
1869, was made a trustee of Brown University. 

2. Apollonius: Apollonius of Tyana was regarded as a 
worker of miracles. He lived in the time of Christ. 

3. Hermes: Compare Milton's lyric, " II Penseroso." 
Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian philosopher who lived 
in Alexandria early in the Christian era. He is said to have 
invented the art of writing in hieroglyphics. 

4. White of Selborne : Gilbert White, author of Natural 
History and Antiquities of Selborne, is said by the poet to 
have magnified the Surrey hills of southern England just as 
the simple, guileless uncle magnified the common features 
of his immediate neighborhood in northeastern Massachu- 
setts. 

143, 1. The dear aunt : The verb for this subject is found 
in the first line of page 144. What was the character of the 
aunt? How do you picture her personal appearance? Miss 
Hussey had the reputation of making the best squash pies 
that were ever baked. 

144, 1. Warp of circumstance: In "Snow-Bound," 
Whittier himself weaves through the warp of circumstantial 
details of his home life something of the woof-thread of 
ooetical romance. The details do not seem merely petty 



SNOW-BOUND 187 

and commonplace, but through the spirit of the writer be- 
come invested with poetic sentiment and charm. In the 
history of literature, Whittier belongs to the great world- 
movement spoken of on page 27, his first model being a 
leader in that movement, Robert Burns. Whittier's par- 
ticular part in the movement, as exemplified in his "Snow- 
Bound," is that of the accurate, sensible observer of rustic 
life. In contrast to Longfellow, who is the cultured library 
poet, Whittier stands for specificness and accuracy of homely 
observation. Whittier's minuteness of detail is admirably 
suggested by his own phrase on page 159 when he speaks of 
his poem as containing " Flemish pictures of old days." The 
Flemish artists were distinguished by their attention to 
minute detail. In the particular phase of literature known 
as American, Whittier is one of the chief writers of the group 
of New England poets who, about the time of the publication 
of his first poem, entered upon a long period of literary 
supremacy in America. 

2. But: Part of speech? 

3. Beside : What other examples do you notice of prepo- 
sitions following their objects? 

145, 1. Never outward swings: It is a beautiful, pathetic 
figure of speech by which the poet thus refers to the death 
of his elder sister. 

2. Motley-braided : Braided in many colors, like the old- 
fashioned rag carpets still to be seen in some country dis- 
tricts. Note that Whittier uses few hyphenated adjectives, in 
contrast to Tennyson, for instance, in his Idylls of the King. 

3. One little year ago : Whittier's younger sister died in 
1864, the year before he wrote the poem. 

146, 1. A loss in all familiar things: In his biography of 
Whittier, George R. Carpenter refers to the memory mood 
in which the poem was written: " It was an old man, tender- 
hearted, who thus drew the portraits of the circle of which 
he and his brother alone survived. The mood was one of 
wistful and reverential piety — the tkoughtf ul farmer's 



188 NOTES 

mood, in many a land, under many a religion, recalling the 
ancient scenes more clearly as his memory for recent things 
grows less secure, living with fond regret the departed days, 
yearning for friends long vanished. Our changed national 
life, the passing away of the old agricultural conditions, the 
breaking up of ancient traditions, has made this wistful and 
reverential mood a constant element in our recent literature. 
In poems and novels we have delighted to reconstruct the 
past, as the Arab-singers before Mohammed began their 
lays with the contemplation of a deserted camping-ground. 
It was Whittier that introduced the new theme, best described 
in the closing lines of his own poem." 

147, 1. Master of the district school: Compare Gold- 
smith's village schoolmaster in " The Deserted Village." It 
is said that William Haskell, the schoolmaster of Whittier's 
poem, never knew that he had been described in the poem. 

2. Experience: One of the subjects of the verb " made," 
on page 148. 

148, 1. Rustic party: Are the three games mentioned still 
played at parties? 

2. Pindus-born Arachthus : The Arachthus is one of five 
rivers which rise in Pindus, the great mountain-chain of 
Greece. 

3. Olympus : The Grecian mountain on the top of which 
the gods were said to dwell. Like Charles Lamb, also lack- 
ing college education, Whittier is even fonder of classical 
allusions than the college trained Longfellow. 

149, 1. Plant: This is one of the verbs in the series 
beginning "shall . . . assail," whose subject is "Who." 

2. Another guest: Harriet, daughter of Judge Livermore, 
of New Hampshire, a woman of great abilities and peculiari- 
ties. She was once an independent missionary to the western 
Indians, whom she believed to be the descendants of the lost 
tribes of Israel. At another time she went about proclaiming 
the second coming of Christ (see page 151). Her travels are 
not exaggerated by the poet. 






SNOW-BOUND 189 

150, 1. Heat-lightnings: A bold metaphor. 

2. Petruchio's Kate: In The Taming of the Shrew by- 
Shakespeare. 

3. Siena's saint : St. Catherine. 

151, 1. Crazy Queen of Lebanon : Lady Hester Stanhope, 
daughter of the third Earl Stanhope. She was the most 
trusted confidante of her uncle, William Pitt; oil his death 
she received a royal pension of £1200 a year. Becoming 
disgusted with society life, she retired for a while into Wales, 
and in 1810 left England to wander about until her death in 
1829 among the half savage people of Mount Lebanon. 
Harriet Livermore lived with her for a time until the two 
quarreled " in regard to two white horses with red marks on 
their backs which suggested the idea of saddles," on which 
Lady Stanhope expected to ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. 

152, 1. But He, etc. : The meaning is as follows: But He 
who understands our physical limitations is just, merciful, 
and compassionate; and the words, He remembers we are 
dust, are full of sweet assurances and hope for all of us. 

153, 1. At last: Note the transition phrase. Having 
gathered the family around the hearth and given us their 
stories and pictures, the poet breaks up his family circle with 
the dying of the fire, that evening. 

158, 1. Quaker matron's inward light: The Quakers be- 
lieved that within themselves there burned a light from God 
which should guide each one independently in his daily acts. 

2. Calvin's creed: Born in 1509, John Calvin spent most 
of his life in Geneva, Switzerland, preaching certain specific 
religious doctrines which came to be called Calvinism: 1. 
Particular Election; 2. Particular Redemption; 3. Moral 
inability in a fallen state; 4. Irresistible grace; 5. Final 
perseverance. The Puritans were rigid Calvinists, stern 
and austere in their beliefs, but stirred by an intensely ideal, 
imaginative faith. 

3. Acid sect : See page 24 for light on Whittier's breadth 
of sympathy. 



190 NOTES 

4. Scarce a score : Probably no American poet had fewer 
books in boyhood than Whittier. At home he had access to 
a few miscellaneous volumes, mostly sermons, tracts, biog- 
raphies, or journals of famous Quakers. He and his sister 
read at night by candles one of the Waverley novels. The 
book of poetry referred to four lines below was an epic poem, 
Davideis, by the Quaker poet, Thomas Elwood, a friend of 
John Milton's. In his autobiographical letter Whittier says 
that as a boy he was a close student of the Bible. 

5. The heathen Nine : The nine muses. 

6. Village paper: Whittier's description of the general 
contents of the village paper of his boyhood needs explana- 
tion with regard to several points. The "painted Creeks " 
referred to on page 157 were the Creek Indians at that time 
being removed from Georgia and driven beyond the Missis- 
sippi. "Daft McGregor" was Sir Gregor McGregor who was 
attempting to found a colony in Costa Rica. " Taygetus " 
was a mountain of Greece. " Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks" 
were inhabitants of the mountainous district of Maina, in 
the Greek province of Laconia. The Mainotes, pronounced 
mi-nots, were a wild, brave people who, under the leadership 
of Ypsilanti, were prominent in the long war for freedom 
from the Turks. " Vendue sales," page 157, were sales at 
auction, still common in the central part of New York state 
under the name " vandoo." The point of the whole descrip- 
tion is in the fifth from the last line on page 157, where the 
word " embargo " means restraint, and where it is suggested 
that the village newspaper broke the bounds of the snow and 
let the thoughts of the household move out across the world. 

The interest that Whittier had in the local paper after he 
was nineteen was often greatly increased by his seeing his 
poems in print. It is said that the first newspaper containing 
a poem of his was thrown to him in the field where he was 
working with his uncle. 

159, 1. Truce of God: An allusion to a formal cessation 
of baronial petty warfare in the middle ages. The church 



SNOW-BOUND 191 

forbade any baron to attack another between sunset on 
Wednesday and sunrise on the following Monday. The 
point of the allusion is that the poet hopes that the worldly 
man's eyes in some reminiscent moment when he has broken 
loose from the struggle of life shall grow wet with tears as 
he thinks of his boyhood winter joys. 

2. Thanks untraced : The last twenty lines of " Snow- 
Bound " beautifully convey the poet's idea of the mission and 
the reception of his poem. 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 



I. THE RAVEN 

1. Relate briefly in simple prose the contents of the 
entire poem. 

2. What are the merits of Poe's poetry compared with 
your prose? 

3. Try your hand at imitating Poe in a stanza of your 
own. 

4. Comparison of Poe's "Raven" with Wordsworth's 
"Green Linnet," Shelley's "To a Skylark," Keats's "Ode 
to a Nightingale," or any other lyric which you particu- 
larly enjoy. 

5. The circumstances of the composition of "The 
Raven." 

6. Just what were the actions of the person who is 
in this poem telling his strange experience? 

7. What were the actions of the bird? 

8. What are your feelings when you finish reading the 
poem aloud? 

9. Knowing something about Poe, Longfellow, and 
Whittier, could you guess which one of the three must 
have written "The Raven?" Reasons. 

10. What makes the poem fascinating? 

11. Strange or uncanny experiences of your own. 

12. Contrast the metrical form of this poem with 
that of the other two poems printed in this book. 

13. Poe's place in literature. 

14. Comparison of the language and the sentence 

193 



194 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 

structure of Poe, Longfellow, and Whittier as seen in 
these three representative American poems. 

II. THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 

1 . In a common history of the United States or in an 
encyclopedia, read the account of Massachusetts colonial 
life, and compare it with Longfellow's poem, in contents 
and form. 

2. Condense the entire poem into a single narrative 
paragraph of about one hundred and fifty words, using 
as topic sentence a statement of the theme of the poem. 

3. As an exercise in the evaluation of words, add to 
your paragraph or subtract from it so as to make it pre- 
cisely one hundred and fifty words long. 

4. From what you have read of Longfellow's life and 
works, do you think he might have made a successful 
novel out of the material contained in this poem, if he 
had tried? Give reasons for your answer. 

5. The courtship in some novel that you have read 
contrasted with that related in the poem. 

6. A courtship as disclosed in a package of old letters 
or in a dozen souvenir postal cards. 

7. (a.) Character studies in the poem. 

(b.) Do Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla seem 
like real persons? 

8. Describe the house in which Standish lived. Sup- 
plement by your imagination the details of the poem. 

9. Describe the Captain. 

10. After reading Part I aloud, would you prefer to 
read the rest of the story in poetry or in prose? Reasons. 

11. The picture that is in your mind of the scene 
between Alden and Priscilla in Part III. 

12. Could you keep your face straight while you were 
reading of the proposal? Why or why not? 

13. Do the girls like this part of the poem best? 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 195 

14. Do the boys prefer Part IV to Part III? 

15. Are you more interested in the descriptions or 
in the exciting passages? Why? 

16. Do you enjoy reading aloud any part of the poem? 

17. Describe Alden's new habitation. 

18. Would you omit any of the lines of the poem? 
If so, which? 

19. Describe the wedding procession. 

20. Write nine sentences each containing in your 
own words the substance of on,e of the parts of the 
poem. 

21. Imaginary account of the courtship of Miles 
Standish and Rose. 

22. Indian stories that you know. 

23. Narratives of several battles. 

24. Accounts of pioneer life. 

25. A wedding. 

26. What makes Longfellow's poem more interesting 
than Poe's? 

27. The place of "The Courtship of Miles Standish " 
in the history of literature. 

III. SNOW-BOUND 

1. Early nineteenth century farm life of New England. 

2. What do your grandparents say about the truth- 
fulness of the picture given in Whittier's winter idyl? 

3. The meaning of idyl. 

4. Even though you have never lived on a farm, can 
you appreciate and enjoy Whittier's poem? 

5. If you have lived on a farm, are you prepared to 
say that the poem seems true to life? 

6. The family described in "Snow-Bound." 

7. Nine pictures of real persons. 

8. Description of the storm, of the barn, of the house, 
and of the scenes outside the house. 



196 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 

9. Description of a snow-storm that has kept you 
from school. 

10. Experiences sliding down straw-stacks, leaping 
from beams in the barn into the haymow, trying to milk 
cows or do other farm chores. 

11. Description of a fine new hip-roofed barn. 

12. A lonely farmhouse in winter. 

13. Summer scenes on a farm that you have visited. 

14. Winter and summer in the city. 

15. Explain how to b.uild a furnace fire, or how to cut 
kindling, or how to keep from being run over. 

16. The relative advantages of city and country life. 

17. Chores of a city boy. 

18. Life in a city apartment or flat contrasted with the 
boyhood life of Whittier. 

19. State in a few words the theme of " Snow-Bound/' 
and then in one paragraph write a well-proportioned sum- 
mary of the entire poem. 

20. Whittier's life as a reformer and poet. 

21. Whom do you admire the most, — Poe, Longfellow, 
or Whittier? Why? 

22. On comparing Whittier's " Snow-Bound " and 
Emerson's " Snow-Storm ," what difference do you observe 
in the metrical form and in the contents? 

23. Using your imagination to fill out the details, give 
as vividly as you can, with gestures if they will help, the 
full picture that is in your mind of the persons gathered 
around the hearth in the evening. Do not tell any of the 
conversation, simply describe the scene at some moment. 

24. The fireside conversation. 

25. Name six American and six English political and 
literary contemporaries of Whittier. 

26. The characteristics of the literary era to which 
Whittier belonged. (See page 27.) 

27. Do you like " Snow-Bound " better than either " The 
Raven" or "The Courtship of Miles Standish"? Reasons. 



Jfterriirs ©iiffltsl) Cept* 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 
AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NO,TES BY 
JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PH.D., PRINCIPAL OF 
THE BERKELEY INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



9 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



Copyright, 1908 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO, 



PREFACE 

The aim of this edition of the Vision of Sir 
Launfal is to furnish the material that must be 
used in any adequate treatment of the poem in 
the class room, and to suggest other material that 
may be used in the more leisurely and fruitful 
method of study that is sometimes possible in spite 
of the restrictions of arbitrary courses of study. 

In interpreting^ the poem with young students, 
special emphasis should be given to the ethical 
significance, the broad appeal to human sym- 
pathy and the sense of a common brotherhood of 
men, an appeal that is in accord with the altruistic 
tendencies of the present time; to the intimate 
appreciation and love of nature expressed in the 
poem, feelings also in accord with the present 
movement of cultured minds toward the natural 
world; to the lofty and inspiring idealism of 
Lowell, as revealed in the poems included in this 
volume and in his biography, and also as con- 
trasted with current materialism; and, finally, to 
the romantic sources of the story in the legends 
of King Arthur and his table round, a region of 
literary delight too generally unknown to present- 
day students. 



4 PREFACE 

After these general topics, it is assumed that 
such matters as literary structure and poetic 
beauty will receive clue attention. If the tech- 
nical faults of the poem, which critics are at much 
pains to point out, are not discovered by the stu- 
dent, his knowledge will be quite as profitable. 
Additional reading in Lowell's works should be 
secured, and can be through the sympathetic 
interest and enthusiasm of the instructor. The fol- 
lowing selections may be used for rapid examina- 
tion and discussion: Under the Willows, The First 
Snow-Fall, Under the Old Elm, Auj Wiedersehen, 
Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, Jonathan to John, 
Mr. Ho sea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly, and the prose essays My Garden Ac- 
quaintance and A Good Word for Winter. The 
opportunity should not be lost for making the 
students forever and interestedly acquainted with 
Lowell, with the poet and the man. 

The editor naturally does not assume respon- 
sibility for the character of the examination ques- 
tions given at the end of this volume. They are 
questions that have been used in recent years in 
college entrance papers by two eminent examina- 
tion boards. 

J. W. A. 

October 1, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction : . PAGE 

Life of Lowell 7 

Critical Appreciations 22 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 26 

The Commemoration Ode 33 

Bibliography 39 

Poets' Tributes to Lowell 40 

Poems : 

The Vision of Sir Launfal . ' . . . • . . . 41 

The Shepherd of King Admetus 59 

An Incident in a Railroad Car 61 

Hebe 66 

To the Dandelion * 67 

My Love 72 

The Changeling 75 

An Indian-Summer Reverie 77 

The Oak 97 

Beaver Brook 100 

The Present Crisis . ' 103 

The Courtin' Ill 

The Commemoration Ode 116 



6 CONTENTS 

N0TES: PAGE 

The Vision of Sir Launfal .135 

The Shepherd of King Admetus 151 

Hebe 151 

To the Dandelion 152 

My Love 153 

The Changeling 153 

An Indian-Summer Reverie 154 

The Oak 159 

Beaver Brook 159 

The Present Crisis 160 

The Courtin' 161 

The Commemoration Ode 162 

Examination Questions . ♦ 171 



INTRODUCTION 

LIFE OF LOWELL 

In Cambridge there are two literary shrines to which 
visitors are sure to find their way soon after passing the 
Harvard gates, "Craigie House," the home of Longfellow 
and "Elmwood," the home of Lowell. Though their 
hallowed retirement has been profaned by the encroach- 
ments of the growing city, yet in their simple dignity 
these fine old colonial mansions still bespeak the noble 
associations of the past, and stand as memorials of the 
finest products of American culture. 

Elmwood was built before the Revolution by Thomas 
Oliver, the Tory governor, who signed his abdication at 
the invitation of a committee of " about four thousand 
people" who surrounded his house at Cambridge. The 
property was confiscated by the Commonwealth and 
used by the American army during the war. In 1818 
it was purchased by the Rev. Charles Lowell, pastor of 
the West Congregational Church in Boston, and after 
ninety years it is still the family home. Here was born, 
February 22, 1819, James Russell Lowell, with surround- 
ings most propitious for the nurturing of a poet-soul. 
Within the stately home there was a refined family life; 
the father had profited by the unusual privilege of three 
years' study abroad, and his library of some four thou- 
sand volumes was not limited to theology; the mother, 
whose maiden name was Spence and who traced her 
Scotch ancestry back to the hero of the ballad of Sir 
Patrick Sjpens, taught her children the good old ballads 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

and the romantic stories in the Fairie Queen, and it was 
one of the poet's earliest delights to recount the adven- 
tures of Spenser's heroes and heroines to his playmates. 
An equally important influence upon his early youth 
was the out-of-door life at Elmwood. To the love of 
nature his soul was early dedicated, and no American 
poet has more truthfully and beautifully interpreted 
the inspired teachings of nature, whispered through the 
solemn tree-tops or caroled by the happy birds. The 
open fields surrounding Elmwood and the farms for miles 
around were his familiar playground, and furnished daily 
adventures for his curious and eager mind. The mere 
delight of this experience with nature, he says, "made 
my childhood the richest part of my life. It seems to 
me as if I had never seen nature again since those old 
days when the balancing of a yellow butterfly over a 
thistle bloom was spiritual food and lodging for a whole 
forenoon." In the Cathedral is an autobiographic pas- 
sage describing in a series of charming pictures some of 
those choice hours of childhood: 

" One summer hour abides, what time I perched, 
Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves, 
And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof 
An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, 
Denouncing me an alien and a thief." 

Quite like other boys Lowell was subjected to the pro- 
cesses of the more formal education of books. He was 
first sent to a "dame school," and then to the private 
school of William Wells, under whose rigid tuition he 
became thoroughly grounded in the classics. Among 
his schoolfellows was W. W. Story, the poet-sculptor, 
who continued his life-long friend. Thomas Wentworth 
Higginson, who was one of the younger boys of the school, 
recalls the high talk of Story and Lowell about the Fairie 
Queen. At fifteen he entered Harvard College, then an 



INTRODUCTION 9 

institution with about two hundred students. The 
course of study in those days was narrow and dull, a 
pretty steady diet of Greek, Latin and Mathematics, 
with an occasional dessert of Paley's Evidences of Chris- 
tianity or Butler's Analogy. Lowell was not distinguished 
for scholarship, but he read omnivorously and wrote 
copiously, often in smooth flowing verse, fashioned after 
the accepted English models of the period. He was an 
editor of Harvardiana, the college magazine, and was 
elected class poet in his senior year. But his habit of 
lounging with the poets in the secluded alcoves of the 
old library, in preference to attending recitations, finally 
became too scandalous for official forbearance, and he 
was rusticated, "on account of constant neglect of his 
college duties," as the faculty records state. He was sent 
to Concord, where his exile was not without mitigating 
profit, as he became acquainted with Emerson and Tho- 
reau. Here he wrote the class poem, which he was per- 
mitted to circulate in print at his Commencement. This 
production, which now stands at the head of the list of 
his published works, was curiously unprophetic of his 
later tendencies. It was written in the neatly polished 
couplets of the Pope type and other imitative metres, 
and aimed to satirize the radical movements of the period, 
especially the transcendentalists and abolitionists, with 
both of whom he was soon to be in active sympathy. 

Lowell's first two years out of college were troubled 
with rather more than the usual doubts and question- 
ings that attend a young man's choice of a profession. 
He studied for a bachelor's degree in law, which he ob- 
tained in two years. But the work was done reluctantly. 
Law books, he says, "I am reading with as few wry faces 
as I may." Though he was nominally practicing law 
for two years, there is no evidence that he ever had a 
client, except the fictitious one so pleasantly described 
in his first magazine article, entitled My First Client. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

From Coke and Blackstone his mind would inevitably 
slip away to hold more congenial communion with the 
poets. He became intensely interested in the old Eng- 
lish dramatists, an interest that resulted in his first series 
of literary articles, The Old English Dramatists, published 
in the Boston Miscellany. The favor with which these 
articles were received increased, he writes, the " hope of 
being able one day to support myself by my pen, and to 
leave a calling which I hate, and for which I am not well 
fitted, to say the least. " 

During this struggle between law and literature an 
influence came into Lowell's life that settled his pur- 
poses, directed his aspirations and essentially determined 
his career. In 1839 he writes to a friend about a "very 
pleasant young lady," who "knows more poetry than 
any one I am acquainted with." This pleasant young 
lady was Maria White, who became his wife in 1844. 
The loves of this young couple constitute one of the most 
pleasing episodes in the history of our literature, idyllic 
in its simple beauty and inspiring in its spiritual perfect- 
ness. "Miss White was a woman of unusual loveliness," 
says Mr. Norton, "and of gifts of mind and heart still 
more unusual, which enabled her to enter with complete 
sympathy into her lover's intellectual life and to direct 
his genius to its highest aims." She was herself a poet, 
and a little volume of her poems published privately after 
her death is an evidence of her refined intellectual gifts 
and lofty spirit. 

In 1841 Lowell published his first collection of poems, 
entitled A Year's Life. The volume was dedicated to 
" Una," a veiled admission of indebtedness for its inspira- 
tion to Miss White. Two poems particularly, Irene and 
My Love, and the best in the volume, are rapturous ex- 
pressions of his new inspiration. In later years he re- 
ferred to the collection as "poor windfalls of unripe 
experience." Only nine of the sixty-eight poems were 



INTRODUCTION 11 

preserved in subsequent collections. In 1843, with a 
young friend, Robert Carter, Lowell launched a new 
magazine, The Pioneer, with the high purpose, as the pro- 
spectus stated, of giving the public " a rational substitute " 
for the " namby-pamby love tales and sketches monthly 
poured out to them by many of our popular magazines." 
These young reformers did not know how strongly the 
great reading public is attached to its literary flesh-pots, 
and so the Pioneer proved itself too good to live in just 
three months. The result of the venture to Lowell was 
an interesting lesson in editorial work and a debt of eight- 
een hundred dollars. His next venture was a second 
volume of Poems, issued in 1844, in which the permanent 
lines of his poetic development appear more clearly than 
in A Year's Life. The tone of the first volume was uni- 
formly serious, but in the second his muse's face begins 
to brighten with the occasional play of wit and humor. 
The volume was heartily praised by the critics and his 
reputation as a new poet of convincing distinction was 
established. In the following year appeared Conver- 
sations on Some of the Old Poets, a volume of literary 
criticism interesting now mainly as pointing to maturer 
work in this field. 

It is generally stated that the influence of Maria White 
made Lowell an Abolitionist, but this is- only qualifiedly 
true. A year before he had met her he wrote to a friend : 
"The Abolitionists are the only ones with whom I sym- 
pathize of the present extant parties." Freedom, jus- 
tice, humanitarianism were fundamental to his native 
idealism. Maria White's enthusiasm and devotion to 
the cause served to crystallize his sentiments and to 
stimulate him to a practical participation in the move- 
ment. Both wrote for the Liberty Bell, an annual pub- 
lished in the interests of the anti-slavery agitation. 
Immediately after their marriage they went to Phila- 
delphia where Lowell for a time was an editorial writer 



12 INTRODUCTION 

for the Pennsylvania Freeman, an anti-slavery journal 
once edited by Whittier. During the next six years he 
was a regular contributor to the Anti-Slavery Standardly 
published in New York. In all of this prose writing 
Lowell exhibited the ardent spirit of the reformer, al- 
though he never adopted the extreme views of Garrison 
and others of the ultra-radical wing of the party. 

But Lowell's greatest contribution to the anti-slavery 
cause was the Biglow Papers, a series of satirical poems 
in the Yankee dialect, aimed at the politicians who were 
responsible for the Mexican War, a war undertaken, as 
he believed, in the interests of the Southern slaveholders. 
Hitherto the Abolitionists had been regarded with con- 
tempt by the conservative, complacent advocates of 
peace and "compromise/' and to join them was essen- 
tially to lose caste in the best society. But now a laugh- 
ing prophet had arisen whose tongue was tipped with 
fire. The Biglow Papers was an unexpected blow to 
the slave power. Never before had humor been used 
directly as a weapon in political warfare. Soon the whole 
country was ringing with the homely phrases of Hosea 
Biglow 's satiric humor, and deriding conservatism began 
to change countenance. "No speech, no plea, no ap- 
peal," says George William Curtis, "was comparable in 
popular and permanent effect with this pitiless tempest of 
fire and hail, in the form of wit, argument, satire, knowl- 
edge, insight, learning, common-sense, and patriotism. 
It was humor of the purest strain, but humor in deadly 
earnest." As an embodiment of the elemental Yankee 
character and speech it is a classic of final authority. 
Says Curtis, "Burns did not give to the Scotch tongue a 
nobler immortality than Lowell gave to the dialect of 
New England." 

The year 1848 was one of remarkably productive re- 
sults for Lowell. Besides the Biglow Papers and some 
forty magazine articles and poems, he published a third 



INTRODUCTION 13 

collection of Poems, the Vision of Sir Launfal, and the 
Fable for Critics. The various phases of his composite 
genius were nearly all represented in these volumes. 
The Fable was a good-natured satire upon his fellow 
authors, in which he touched up in rollicking rhymed 
couplets the merits and weaknesses of each, not omitting 
himself, with witty characterization and acute critical 
judgment; and it is still read for its delicious humor and 
sterling criticism. For example, the lines on Poe will 
always be quoted: 

" There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, 
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge." 

And so the sketch of Hawthorne : 

" There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare 
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there; 
A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, 
So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet, 
Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet." 

Lowell was now living in happy content at Elmwood. 
His father, whom he once speaks of as a "Dr. Primrose 
in the comparative degree, " had lost a large portion of 
his property, and literary journals in those days sent 
very small checks to young authors. So humble frugal- 
ity was an attendant upon the high thinking of the 
poet couple, but this did not matter, since the richest 
objects of their ideal world could be had without price. 
But clouds suddenly gathered over their beautiful lives. 
Four children were born, three of whom died in infancy. 
Lowell's deep and lasting grief for his first-born is tenderly 
recorded in the poems She Came and Went and the First 
Snow-Fall. The volume of poems published in 1848 
was "reverently dedicated " to the memory of "our little 
Blanche," and in the introductory poem addressed "To 



14 INTRODUCTION 

M. W. L. " he poured forth his sorrow like a libation of 

tears: 

" I thought our love at full, but I did err; 
Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not see 
That sorrow in our happy world must be 
Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter." 

The year 1851-52 was spent abroad for the benefit of 
Mrs. Lowell's health, which was now precarious. At 
Rome their little son Walter died, and one year after 
their return to Elm wood sorrow's crown of sorrow came 
to the poet in the death of Mrs. Lowell, October, 1853. 
For years after the dear old home was to him The Dead 
House, as he wrote of it : 

" For it died that autumn morning 
When she, its soul, was borne 
To lie all dark on the hillside 

That looks over woodland and corn." 

Before 1854 Lowell's literary success had been won 
mainly in verse. With the appearance in the magazines 
of A Moosehead Journal, Fireside Travels, and Leaves 
from My Italian Journal his success as a prose essayist 
began. Henceforth, and against his will, his prose was 
a stronger literary force than his poetry. He now gave 
a course of lectures on the English poets at the Lowell 
Institute, and during the progress of these lectures he 
received notice of his appointment to succeed Longfellow 
in the professorship of the French and Spanish languages 
and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College. A year was 
spent in Europe in preparation for his new work, and 
during the next twenty years he faithfully performed the 
duties of the professorship, pouring forth the ripening 
fruits of his varied studies in lectures such as it is not often 
the privilege of college students to hear. That pulling 



INTRODUCTION 15 

in the yoke of this steady occupation was sometimes 
galling is shown in his private letters. To W. D. Howells 
he wrote regretfully of the time and energy given to teach- 
ing, and of his conviction that he would have been a 
better poet if he " had not estranged the muse by donning a 
professor's gown." But a good teacher always bears in 
his left hand the lamp of sacrifice. 

In 1857 Lowell was married to Miss Frances Dunlap, 
" a woman of remarkable gifts and grace of person and 
character/' says Charles Eliot Norton. In the same 
year the Atlantic Monthly was launched and Lowell 
became its first editoV. This position he held four years. 
Under his painstaking and wise management the mag- 
azine quickly became what it has continued to be, the 
finest representative of true literature among period- 
icals. In 1864 he joined his friend, Professor Norton, in 
the editorship of the North American Review, to which he 
gave much of the distinction for which this periodical 
was once so worthily famous. In this first appeared his 
masterly essays on the great poets, Chaucer, Dante, 
Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, and the others, 
which were gathered into the three volumes, Among My 
Books, first and second series, and My Study Windows. 
Variety was given to this critical writing by such charm- 
ing essays as A Good Word for Winter and the deliciously 
caustic paper On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners. 

One of the strongest elements of Lowell's character 
was patriotism. His love of country and his native soil 
was not merely a principle, it was a passion. No Amer- 
ican author has done so much to enlarge and exalt the 
ideals of democracy. An intense interest in the welfare 
of the nation broadened the scope of his literary work 
and led him at times into active public life. During the 
Civil War he published a second series of Biglow Papers, 
in which, says Mr. Greenslet, "we feel the vital stirring 
of the mind of Lowell as it was moved by the great war; 



16 INTRODUCTION 

and if they never had quite the popular reverberation 
of the first series, they made deeper impression, and are 
a more priceless possession of our literature/' When 
peace was declared in April, 1865, he wrote to Professor 
Norton: "The news, my clear Charles, is from Heaven. 
I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to 
laugh and I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my 
peace and feeling devoutly thankful. There is some- 
thing magnificent in having a country to love." On 
July 21 a solemn service was held at Harvard College 
in memory of her sons who had died in the war, in which 
Lowell gave the Commemoration Otie, a poem which is 
now regarded, not as popular, but as marking the highest 
reach of his poetic power. The famous passage character- 
izing Lincoln is unquestionably the finest tribute ever 
paid to Lincoln -by an American author. 

In the presidential campaign of 1876 Lowell was ac- 
tive, making speeches, serving as delegate to the Repub- 
lican Convention, and later as Presidential Elector. 
There was even much talk of sending him to Congress. 
Through the friendly offices of Mr. Howells, who was in 
intimate personal relations with President Hayes, he 
was appointed Minister to Spain. This honor was the 
more gratifying to him because he had long been devoted 
to the Spanish literature and language, and he could 
now read his beloved Calderon with new joys. In 1880 
he was promoted to the English mission, and during the 
next four years represented his country at the Court of 
St. James in a manner that raised him to the highest 
point of honor and esteem in both nations. His career 
in England was an extraordinary, in most respects an 
unparalleled success. He was our first official represent- 
ative to win completely the heart of the English people, 
and a great part of his permanent achievement was to 
establish more cordial relations between the two coun- 
tries. His literary reputation had prepared the ground 



INTRODUCTION 17 

for his personal popularity. He was greeted as "His 
Excellency the Ambassador of American Literature to 
the Court of Shakespeare." His fascinating personality 
won friends in every circle of society. Queen Victoria 
declared that during her long reign no ambassador had 
created so much interest or won so much regard. He 
had already been honored by degrees from Oxford and 
Cambridge, and now many similar honors were thrust 
upon him. He was acknowledged to be the best after- 
dinner speaker in England, and no one was called upon 
so often for addresses at dedications, the unveiling of 
tablets, and other civic occasions. It is not strange 
that he became attached to England with an increasing 
affection, but there was no diminution of his intense 
Americanism. His celebrated Birmingham address on 
Democracy is yet our clearest and noblest exposition of 
American political principles and ideals. 

With the inauguration of Cleveland in 1885 Lowell's 
official residence in England came to an end. He re- 
turned to America and for a time lived with his daughter 
at Deerfoot Farm. Mrs. Lowell had died in England, 
and he could not carry his sorrow back to Elm wood alone. 
He now leisurely occupied himself with literary work, 
making an occasional address upon literature or politics, 
which was always distinguished by grace and dignity of 
style and richness of thought. 

In November, 1886, he delivered the oration at the 
250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard Univer- 
sity, and, rising to the requirements of this notable occa- 
sion, he captivated his hearers, among whom were many 
distinguished delegates from the great universities of 
Europe as well as of America, by the power of his thought 
and the felicity of his expression. 

During the period of his diplomatic service he added 
almost nothing to his permanent literary product. In 
1869 he had published Under the Willows, a collection 



IS INTRODUCTION 

that contains some of his finest poems. In the same 
year The Cathedral was published, a stately poem in 
blank verse, profound in thought, with many passages 
of great poetic beauty. In 1888 a final collection of 
poems was published, entitled Heartsease and Rue, which 
opened with the memorial poem, Ayassiz, an elegy that 
would not be too highly honored by being bound in a 
golden volume with Lycidas, Adonais and Thyrsis. Going 
back to his earliest literary studies, he again (1887) lec- 
tured at the Lowell Institute on the old dramatists. 
Occasionally he gave a poem to the magazines and a 
collection of these Last Poems was made in 1895 by Pro- 
fessor Norton. During these years were written many 
of the charming Letters to personal friends, which rank 
with the finest literary letters ever printed and must 
always be regarded as an important part of his prose 
works. 

It was a gracious boon of providence that Lowell was 
permitted to spend his last years at Elmwood, with his 
daughter, Mrs. Burnett, and his grandchildren. There 
again, as in the early days, he watched the orioles build- 
ing their nests and listened to the tricksy catbird's call. 
To an English friend he writes: "I watch the moon rise 
behind the same trees through which I first saw it sev- 
enty years ago and have a strange feeling of permanence, 
as if I should watch it seventy years longer/' In the 
old library by the familiar fireplace he sat, when the 
shadows were playing among his beloved books, com- 
muning with the beautiful past. What unwritten poems 
of pathos and sweetness may have ministered to his 
great soul we cannot know. In 1890 a fatal disease 
came upon him, and after long and heroic endurance of 
pain he died, August 12, 1891, and under the trees of 
Mt. Auburn he rests, as in life still near his great neigh- 
bor Longfellow. In a memorial poem Oliver Wendell 
Holmes spoke for the thousands who mourned: 



INTRODUCTION 19 

" Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade, 
Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; 
Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade 
And grateful memory guard thy leafy shrine." 

Lo welFs rich and varied personality presents a type 
of cultured manhood that is the finest product of Amer- 
ican democracy. The largeness of his interests and the 
versatility of his intellectual powers give him a unique 
eminence among American authors. His genius was 
undoubtedly embarrassed by the diffusive tendency of 
his interests. He might have been a greater poet had 
he been less the reformer and statesman, and his creative 
impulses were often absorbed in the mere enjoyment of 
exercising his critical faculty. Although he achieved 
only a qualified eminence as poet, or as prose writer, yet 
because of the breadth and variety of his permanent 
achievement he must be regarded as our greatest man 
of letters. His sympathetic interest, always outflowing 
toward concrete humanity, was a quality — 

" With such large range as from the ale-house bench 
Can reach the stars and be with both at home." 

With marvelous versatility and equal ease he could talk 
with the down-east farmer and salty seamen and ex- 
change elegant compliments with old world royalty. In 
The Cathedral he says significantly: 

" I thank benignant nature most for this, — 
A force of sympathy, or call it lack 
Of character firm-planted, loosing me 
From the pent chamber of habitual self 
To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, 
Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, 
And through imagination to possess, 
As tLcy -iYco mine, the lives of other men." 



20 INTRODUCTION 

In the delightful little poem, The Nightingale in the 
Study, we have a fanciful expression of the conflict be- 
tween Loweirs love of books and love of nature. His 
friend the catbird calls him "out beneath the unmas- 
tered sky," where the buttercups "brim with wine beyond 
all Lesbian juice." But there are ampler skies, he an- 
swers, "in Fancy 's land," and the singers though dead 

so long — , 

" Give its best sweetness to all song, 

To nature's self her better glory." 

His love of reading is manifest in all his work, giving to 
his style a bookishness that is sometimes excessive and 
often troublesome. His expression, though generally 
direct and clear, and happily colored by personal frank- 
ness, is often burdened with learning. To be able to 
read his essays with full appreciation is in itself evidence 
of a liberal education. His scholarship was broad and 
profound, but it was not scholarship in the German 
sense, exhaustive and exhausting. He studied for the 
joy of knowing, never for the purpose of being known, 
and he cared more to know the spirit and meaning of 
things than to know their causes and origins. A lan- 
guage he learned for the sake of its literature rather than 
its philology. As Mr. Brownell observes, he shows little 
interest in the large movements of the world's history. 
He seemed to prefer history as sublimated in the poet's 
song. The field of belles-lettres was his native province; 
its atmosphere was most congenial to his tastes. In 
book-land it was always June for him — 

" Springtime ne'er denied 
Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods 
Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year." 

But books could never divert his soul from its early 
endearments with out-of-door nature. "The older I 



INTRODUCTION 21 

grow," he says, "the more I am convinced that there 
are no satisfactions so deep and so permanent as our 
sympathies with outward nature." And in the preface 
to My Study Windows he speaks of himself as "one who 
has always found his most fruitful study in the open 
air." The most charming element of his poetry is the 
nature element that everywhere cheers and stimulates 
the reader. It is full of sunshine and bird music. So 
genuine, spontaneous and sympathetic are his descrip- 
tions that we feel the very heart throbs of nature in his 
verse, and in the prose of such records of intimacies with 
outdoor friends as the essay, My Garden Acquaintance. 
"How I do love the earth," he exclaims. "I feel it 
thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were con- 
scious of my love, as if something passed into my 
dancing blood from it." It is this sensitive nearness 
to nature that makes him a better interpreter of her 
"visible forms" than Bryant even; moreover, unlike 
Bryant he always catches the notes of joy in nature's 
voices and feels the uplift of a happy inspiration. 

In the presence of the immense popularity of Mark 
Twain, it may seem paradoxical to call Lowell our great- 
est American humorist. Yet in the refined and artistic 
qualities of humorous writing and in the genuineness of 
the native flavor his work is certainly superior to any 
other humorous writing that is likely to compete with it 
for permanent interest. Indeed, Mr. Greenslet thinks 
that "it is as the author of the Biglow Papers that he is 
likely to be longest remembered." The perpetual play 
of humor gave to his work, even to the last, the freshness 
of youth. We love him for his boyish love of pure fun. 
The two large volumes of his Letters are delicious reading 
because he put into them "good wholesome nonsense/' 
as he says, "keeping my seriousness to bore myself 
with." 

But this sparkling and overflowing humor never ob- 



22 INTRODUCTION 

scures the deep seriousness that is the undercurrent cf 
all his writing. A high idealism characterizes all his 
work. One of his greatest services to his country was 
the effort to create a saner and sounder political life. 
As he himself realized, he often moralized his work too 
much with a purposeful idealism. In middle life he said, 
"I shall never be a poet until I get out of the pulpit, and 
New England was all meeting-house when I was growing 
up." In religion and philosophy he was conservative, 
deprecating the radical and scientific tendencies of the 
age, with its knife and glass - 

" That make thought physical ^ nd thrust far off 
The Heaven, so neighborly vvith man of old." 

The moral impulse and the poetic impulse were often 
in conflict, and much of his early poetry for this reason 
was condemned by his later judgment. His maturer 
poems are filled with deep-thoughted lines, phrases of 
high aspiration and soul-stirring ecstasies. Though his 
thought is spiritual and ideal, it is always firmly rooted 
in the experience of common humanity. All can climb 
the heights with him and catch inspiring glimpses at 
least of the ideal and the infinite. 



CRITICAL APPRECIATIONS 

"The proportion of his poetry that can be so called 
is small. But a great deal of it is very fine, very noble, 
and at times very beautiful, and it discloses the dis- 
tinctly poetic faculty of which rhythmic and figurative 
is native expression. It is impressionable rather than 
imaginative in the large sense; it is felicitous in detail 
rather than in design; and of a general rather than indi- 
vidual, a representative rather than original, inspiration. 
There is a field of poetry, assuredly not the highest, but 



INTRODUCTION 23 

ample and admirable — in which these qualities, more or 
less unsatisfactory in prose, are legitimately and fruit- 
fully exercised. All poetry is in the realm of feeling, and 
thus less exclusively dependent on the thought that is 
the sole reliance of prose. Being genuine poetry, Lowell's 
profits by this advantage. Feeling is fitly, genuinely, 
its inspiration. Its range and limitations correspond to 
the character of his susceptibility, as those of his prose 
do to that of his thought. The fusion of the two in the 
crucible of the imagination is infrequent with him, be- 
cause with him it is the fancy rather than the imagina- 
tion that is luxuriant and highly developed. For the 
architectonics of poetry he had not the requisite reach 
and grasp, the comprehensive and constructing vision 
Nothing of his has any large design or effective inter- 
dependent proportions. In a technical way an exception 
should be noted in his skilful building of the ode — a 
form in which he was extremely successful and for which 
he evidently had a native aptitude. . . . Lowell's consti- 
tutes, on the whole, the most admirable American contribu- 
tion to the nature poetry of English literature — far bey end 
that of Bryant, Whittier, or Longfellow, I think, and only 
occasionally excelled here and there by the magic touch 
of Emerson." — W. C. Brownell, in Scribner's Magazine, 
February, 1907. 

"Lowell is a poet who seems to represent New England 
more variously than either of his comrades. We find 
in his work, as in theirs, her loyalty and moral purpose. 
She has been at cost for his training, and he in turn has 
read her heart, honoring her as a mother before the 
world, and seeing beauty in her common garb and speech. 
- . . If Lowell be not first of all an original genius, I 
know not where to look for one. Judged by his personal 
bearing, who is brighter, more persuasive, more equal 
to the occasion than himself, — less open to Doudan's 



24 INTRODUCTION 

stricture upon writers who hoard and store up their 
thoughts for the betterment of their printed works? 
Lowell's treasury can stand the drafts of both speech and 
composition. Judged by his works, as a poet in the end 
must be, he is one who might gain by revision and com- 
pression. But think, as is his due, upon the high-water 
marks of his abundant tide, and see how enviable the 
record of a poet who is our most brilliant and learned 
critic, and who has given us our best native idyll, our 
best and most complete work in dialectic verse, and the 
noblest heroic ode that America has produced — each 
and all ranking with the first of their kinds in English 
literature of the modern time." — Edmund Clarence 
Stedman. 

As a racy humorist and a brilliant wit using verse as 
an instrument of expression, he has no clear superior, 
probably no equal, so far at least as American readers 
are concerned, among writers who have employed 
the English language. As a satirist he has superiors, 
but scarcely as an inventor of jeux d 'esprit. As a patriotic 
lyrist he has few equals and very few superiors in what 
is probably the highest function of such a poet — that 
of stimulating to a noble height the national instincts of 
his countrymen. . . . The rest of his poetry may fairly 
be said to gain on that of any of his American contempo- 
raries save Poe in more sensuous rhythm, in choicer 
diction, in a more refined and subtilized imagination, and 
in a deeper, a more brooding intelligence. " — Prof. 
William P. Trent. 

"In originality, in virility, in many-sidedness, Low- 
ell is the first of American poets. He not only pos- 
sessed, at times in nearly equal measure, many of the 
qualities most notable in his fellow-poets, rivaling Bry- 
ant as a painter of nature, and Holmes in pathos, having 



INTRODUCTION 25 

a touch too of Emerson's transcendentalism, and rising 
occasionally to Whittier's moral fervor, but he brought to 
all this much beside. In one vein he produced such a 
masterpiece of mingled pathos and nature painting as 
we find in the tenth Biglow letter of the second series; 
in another, such a lyric gem as The Fountain; in another, 
The First Snow-Fail and After the Burial; in another, 
again, the noble Harvard Commemoration Ode. ... He 
had plainly a most defective ear for rhythm and verbal 
harmony. Except when he confines himself to simple 
metres, we rarely find five consecutive lines which do 
not in some way jar on us. His blank verse and the ir- 
regular metres which he, unfortunately, so often employs, 
have little or no music, and are often quite intolerable. 
But after all the deductions which the most exacting 
criticism can make, it still remains that, as a serious 
poet Lowell stands high. As a painter of nature, he 
has, when at his best, few superiors, and, in his own 
country, none. Whatever be their esthetic and tech- 
nical deficiencies, he has written many poems of senti- 
ment and pathos which can never fail to come home to 
all to whom such poetry appeals. His hortatory and 
didactic poetry, as it expresses itself in the Commemora- 
tion Ode, is worthy, if not of the music and felicity of 
Milton and Wordsworth, at least of their tone, when 
that tone is most exalted. As a humorist he is inimitable. 
His humor is rooted in a fine sense of the becoming, and 
in a profounder insight into the character of his country- 
men than that of any other American writer." — John 
Churton Collins. 

"He was a brilliant wit and a delightful humorist; 
a discursive essayist of unfailing charm ; the best Amer- 
ican critic of his time; a scholar of wide learning, deep 
also when his interest was most engaged; a powerful 
writer on great public questions; a patriot passionately 
pure; but first, last, and always he was a poet, never so 



26 INTRODUCTION 

happy as when he was looking at the world from the 
poet's mount of vision and seeking for fit words and 
musical to tell what he had seen. But his emotion was 
not sufficiently ' recollected in tranquillity/ Had he 
been more an artist he would have been a better poet, 
for then he would have challenged the invasions of his 
literary memory, his humor, his animal spirits, within 
limits where they had no right of way. If his humor 
was his rarest, it was his most dangerous gift; so often 
did it tempt him to laugh out in some holy place. . . . 
Less charming than Longfellow, less homely than Whit- 
tier, less artistic than Holmes, less grave than Bryant, 
less vivid than Emerson, less unique than Poe, his qual- 
ities, intellectual, moral and esthetic, in their assem- 
blage and coordination assign him to a place among 
American men of letters which is only a little lower than 
that which is Emerson's and his alone." — John White 
Chadwick. 

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Early in 1848 in a letter to his friend Briggs, Lowell 
speaks of The Vision of Sir Launfal as "a sort of story, 
and more likely to be popular than what I write gener- 
ally. Maria thinks very highly of it." And in another 
letter he calls it "a little narrative poem." In Decem- 
ber, 1848, it was published in a thin volume alone, and 
at once justified the poet's expectations of popularity. 
The poem was an improvisation, like that of his "musing 
organist," for it was written, we are told, almost at a 
single sitting, entirely within two days. The theme may 
have been suggested by Tennyson's Sir Galahad, but his 
familiarity with the old romances and his love of the 
mystical and symbolic sense of these good old-time tales 
were a quite ample source for such suggestion. More- 
over Lowell in his early years was much given to seeing 



INTRODUCTION 27 

visions and dreaming dreams. " During that part of 
my life," he says, " which I lived most alone, I was never 
a single night unvisited by visions, and once I thought 
I had a personal revelation from God Himself." The 
Fairie Queen was "the first poem I ever read," he says, 
and the bosky glades of Elmwood were often trans- 
formed into an enchanted forest where the Knight of 
the Red Cross, and Una and others in medieval costume 
passed up and down before his wondering eyes. This 
medieval romanticism was a perfectly natural accom- 
paniment of his intense idealism. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal and the Fable for Critics, 
published in the same year, illustrate the two dominant 
and strikingly contrasted qualities of his nature, a con- 
trast of opposites which he himself clearly perceived. 
"I find myself very curiously compounded of two utterly 
distinct characters. One half of me is clear mystic and 
enthusiast, and the other, humorist," and he adds that 
"it would have taken very little to have made a Saint 
Francis" of him. It was the Saint Francis of New Eng- 
land, the moral and spiritual enthusiast in Lowell's 
nature that produced the poem and gave it power. Thus 
we see that notwithstanding its antique style and arti- 
ficial structure, it was a perfectly direct and spontaneous 
expression of himself. 

The allegory of the Vision is easily interpreted, in its 
main significance. There is nothing original in the les- 
son, the humility of true charity, and it is a common 
criticism that the moral purpose of the poem is lost 
sight of in the beautiful nature pictures. But a knowl- 
edge of the events which were commanding Lowell's 
attention at this time and quickening his native feelings 
into purposeful utterance gives to the poem a much 
deeper significance. In 1844, when the discussion over 
the annexation of Texas was going on, he wrote The 
Present Crisis, a noble appeal to his countrymen to im- 



28 INTRODUCTION 

prove and elevate their principles. During the next 
four years he was writing editorially for the Standard, the 
official organ of the Anti-Slavery Society, at the same 
time he was bringing out the Biglow Papers. In all 
these forms of expression he voiced constantly the sen- 
timent of reform, which now filled his heart like a holy 
zeal. The national disgrace of slavery rested heavily 
upon his soul. He burned with the desire to make God's 
justice prevail where man's justice had failed. In 1846 
he said in a letter, " It seems as if my heart would break 
in pouring out one glorious song that should be the gos- 
pel of Reform, full of consolation and strength to the 
oppressed, yet falling gently and restoringly as dew on 
the withered youth-flowers of the oppressor. That 
way my madness lies, if any." This passionate } r earning 
for reform is embodied poetically in the Vision. In a 
broad sense, therefore, the poem is an expression of 
ideal democracy, in which equality, sympathy, and a 
sense of the common brotherhood of man are the basis 
of all ethical actions and standards. It is the Christ- 
like conception of human society that is always so allur- 
ing in the poetry and so discouraging in the prose of life. 
The following explanation appeared in the early edi- 
tions of the poem as an introductory note: 

" According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San 
Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ 
partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought 
into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, 
an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the 
keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon 
those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, 
and deed; but, one of the keepers having broken this condi- 
tion, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a 
favorite enterprise of the Knights of Arthur's court to go in 
search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding 



INTRODUCTION 29 

it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance 
of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the sub- 
ject of one of the most exquisite of his poems. 

" The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) 
of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, 
I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the 
miraculous cup in such a manner as to include not only 
Other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also 
a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's 
reign." 

In the last sentence there is a sly suggestion of Lowell's 
playfulness. Of course every one may compete in the 
search for the Grail, and the "time subsequent to King 
Arthur's reign" includes the present time. The Ro- 
mance of King Arthur is the Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas 
Malory. Lowell's specific indebtedness to the medieval 
romances extended only to the use of the symbol of con- 
secration to some noble purpose in the search for the 
Grail, and to the name of his hero. It is a free version 
of older French romances belonging to the Arthurian 
cycle. Sir Launfal is the title of a poem written by Sir 
Thomas Chestre in the reign of Henry VI, which may 
be found in Rit son's Ancient English Metrical Romances. 
There is nothing suggestive of Lowell's poem except 
the quality of generosity in the hero, who — 

" gaf gyftys largelyche, 
Gold and sylver; and clodes ryche, 
To squyer and to knight." 

One of Lowell's earlier poems, The Search, contains 
the germ of The Vision of Sir Launfal. It represents a 
search for Christ, first in nature's fair woods and fields, 
then in the " proud world" amid " power and wealth," 
and the search finally ends in "a hovel rude" where — 



30 INTRODUCTION 

"The King I sought for meekly stood; 
A naked, hungry child 
Clung round his gracious knee, 
And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled 
To bless the smile that set him free." 

And Christ, the seeker learns, is not to be found by wan- 
dering through the world. 

" His throne is with the outcast and the weak/' 

A similar fancy also is embodied in a little poem en- 
titled A Parable. Christ goes through the world to see 
"How the men, my brethren, believe in me/' and he 
finds "in church, and palace, and judgment-hall," a 
disregard for the primary principles of his teaching. 

" Have ye founded your throne and altars, then, 
On the bodies and souls of living men? 
And think ye that building shall endure, 
Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? " 

These early poems and passages in others written at 
about the same time, taken in connection with the Vision, 
show how strongly the theme had seized upon Lowell's 
mind. 

The structure of the poem is complicated and some- 
times confusing. At the outset the student must no- 
tice that there is a story within a story. The action of 
the major story covers only a single night, and the hero 
of this story is the real Sir Launfal, who in his sleep dreams 
the minor story, the Vision. The action of this story 
covers the lifetime of the hero, the imaginary Sir Laun- 
fal, from early manhood to old age, and includes his 
wanderings in distant lands. The poem is constructed 
on the principles of contrast and parallelism. By hold- 
ing to this method of structure throughout Lowell sacri- 
ficed the important artistic element of unity, especially 



INTRODUCTION 31 

in breaking the narrative with the Prelude to the second 
part. The first Prelude describing the beauty and in- 
spiring joy of spring, typifying the buoyant youth and 
aspiring soul of Sir Launfal, corresponds to the second 
Prelude, describing the bleakness and desolation of 
winter, typifying the old age and desolated life of the 
hero. But beneath the surface of this wintry age there 
is a new soul of summer beauty, the warm love of suffer- 
ing humanity, just as beneath the surface of the frozen 
brook there is an ice-palace of summer beauty. In 
Part First the gloomy castle with its joyless interior 
stands as the only cold and forbidding thing in the land- 
scape /'like an outpost of winter;" so in Part Second the 
same castle with Christmas joys within is the only bright 
and gladsome object in the landscape. In Part First 
the castle gates never " might opened be"; in Part 
Second the " castle gates stand open now." And thus 
the student may find various details contrasted and par- 
alleled. The symbolic meaning must be kept constantly 
in mind, or it will escape unobserved; for example, the 
cost of earthly things in comparison with the generosity 
of June corresponds to the churlish castle opposed to 
the inviting warmth of summer; and each symbolizes 
the proud, selfish, misguided heart of Sir Launfal in 
youth, in comparison with the humility and large Chris- 
tian charity in old age. The student should search for 
these symbolic hints, passages in which "more is meant 
than meets the ear," but if he does not find all that the 
poet may or may not have intended in his dreamy design, 
there need be no detraction from the enjoyment of the 
poem. 

Critical judgment upon The Vision of Sir Launfal is 
generally severe in respect to its structural faults. Mr. 
Greenslet declares that " through half a century, nine 
readers out of ten have mistaken Lowell's meaning," 
even the " numerous commentators" have "interpreted 



32 INTRODUCTION 

the poem as if the young knight actually adventured 
the quest and returned from it at the end of years, broken 
and old." This, however, must be regarded as a rather 
exaggerated estimate of the lack of unity and consistency 
in the poem. Stedman says: "I think that The Vision 
of Sir Launfal owed its success quite as much to a pres- 
entation of nature as to its misty legend. It really is a 
landscape poem, of which the lovely passage, 'And what 
is so rare as a day in June?' and the wintry prelude to 
Part Second, are the specific features." And the Eng- 
lish critic, J. Churton Collins, thinks that "Sir Launfal, 
except for the beautiful nature pictures, scarcely rises 
above the level of an Ingoldsby Legend." 

The popular judgment of the poem (which after all is 
the important judgment) is fairly stated by Mr. Greens- 
let: " There is probably no poem in American literature 
in which a visionary faculty like that [of Lowell] is ex- 
pressed w r ith such a firm command of poetic background 
and variety of music as in Sir Launfal ... its structure 
is far from perfect ; yet for all that it has stood the search- 
ing test of time ; it is beloved now by thousands of young 
American readers, for whom it has been a first initia- 
tion to the beauty of poetic idealism." 

While studying The Vision of Sir Launfal the student 
should be made familiar with Tennyson's Sir Galahad 
and The Holy Grail, and the libretto of Wagner's Par- 
sifal. Also Henry A. Abbey's magnificent series of mural 
paintings in the Boston Public Library, representing the 
Quest of the Holy Grail, may be utilized in the Copley 
Prints. If possible the story of Sir Galahad's search 
for the Grail in the seventeenth book of Sir Thomas 
Malory's Morte Darthur should be read. It would be 
well also to read Longfellow's King Robert of Sicily, 
which to some extent presents a likeness of motive and 
treatment. 



INTRODUCTION S3 

THE COMMEMORATION ODE 

In April, 1865, the Civil War was ended and peace was 
declared. On July 21 Harvard College held a solemn 
service in commemoration of her ninety-three sons who 
had been killed in the war. Eight of these fallen young 
heroes were of Lowell's own kindred. Personal grief 
thus added intensity to the deep passion of his utterance 
upon this great occasion. He was invited to give a 
poem, and the ode which he presented proved to be the 
supreme event of the noble service. The scene is thus 
described by Francis H. Underwood, who was in the 
audience : 

"The services took place in the open air, in the pres- 
ence of a great assembly. Prominent among the speakers 
were Major-General Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, and 
Major-General Devens. The wounds of the war were 
still fresh and bleeding, and the interest of the occasion 
was deep and thrilling. The summer afternoon was 
drawing to its close when the poet began the recital of 
the ode. No living audience could for the first time 
follow with intelligent appreciation the delivery of such 
a poem. To be sure, it had its obvious strong points 
and its sonorous charms; but, like all the later poems of 
the author, it is full of condensed thought and requires 
study. The reader to-day finds many passages whose 
force and beauty escaped him during the recital, but the 
effect of the poem at the time was overpowering. The 
face of the poet, always singularly expressive, was on 
this occasion almost transfigured — glowing, as if with 
an inward light. It was impossible to look away from it. 
Our age has furnished many great historic scenes, but 
this Commemoration combined the elements of grandeur 
and pathos, and produced an impression as lasting as 
life." 

Of the delivery and immediate effect of the poem Mr. 



34 INTRODUCTION 

Greenslet says: "Some in the audience were thrilled and 
shaken by it, as Lowell himself was shaken in its deliv- 
ery, yet he seems to have felt with some reason that it 
was not a complete and immediate success. Nor is this 
cause for wonder. The passion of the poem was too 
ideal, its woven harmonies too subtle to be readily com- 
municated to so large an audience, mastered and mellowed 
though it was by a single deep mood. Nor was Lowell's 
elocution quite that of the deep-mouthed odist capable 
of interpreting such organ tones of verse. But no sooner 
was the poem published, with the matchless Lincoln 
strophe inserted, than its greatness and nobility were 
manifest." 

The circumstances connected with the writing of the 
ode have been described by Lowell in his private letters. 
It appears that he was reluctant to undertake the task, 
and for several weeks his mind utterly refused to respond 
to the high duty put upon it. At last the sublime thought 
came to him upon the swift wings of inspiration. "The 
ode itself," he says, "was an improvisation. Two days 
before the commemoration I had told my friend Child 
that it was impossible — that I was dull as a door-mat. 
But the next day something gave me a jog, and the 
whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all 
night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of 
the day to Child." In another letter he says : "The poem 
was written with a vehement speed, which I thought I 
had lost in the skirts of my professor's gown. Till with- 
in two days of the celebration I was hopelessly dumb, 
and then it all came with a rush, literally making me 
lean (mi fece magro), and so nervous that I was weeks 
in getting over it." In a note in Scudder's biography 
of Lowell (Vol. II., p. 65), it is stated upon the author- 
ity of Mrs. Lowell that the poem was begun at ten o'clock 
the night before the commemoration day, and finished 
at four o'clock in the morning. "She opened her eyes 



INTRODUCTION 35 

to see him standing haggard, actually wasted by the 
stress of labor and the excitement which had carried him 
through a poem full of passion and fire, of five hundred 
and twenty-three lines, in the space of six hours." 

Critical estimates are essentially in accord as to the 
deep significance and permanent poetic worth of this 
poem. Greenslet, the latest biographer of Lowell, says 
that the ode, "if not his most perfect, is surely his no- 
blest and most splendid work," and adds: " Until the 
dream of human brotherhood is forgotten, the echo of 
its large music will not wholly die away." Professor 
Beers declares it to be, "although uneven, one of the 
finest occasional poems in the language, and the most 
important contribution which our Civil War has made to 
song." Of its exalted patriotism, George William Cur- 
tis says: "The patriotic heart of America throbs forever 
in Lincoln's Gettysburg address. But nowhere in lit- 
erature is there a more magnificent and majestic personi- 
fication of a country whose name is sacred to its children, 
nowhere a profounder passion of patriotic loyalty, than 
in the closing lines of the Commemoration Ode. The 
American whose heart, swayed by that lofty music, 
does not thrill and palpitate with solemn joy and high 
resolve does not yet know what it is to be an American." 

With the praise of a discriminating criticism Stedman 
discusses the ode in his Poets of America: "Another 
poet would have composed a less unequal ode ; no Amer- 
ican could have glorified it with braver passages, with 
whiter heat, with language and imagery so befitting im- 
passioned thought. Tried by the rule that a true poet 
is at his best with the greatest theme, Lowell's strength 
is indisputable. The ode is no smooth-cut verse from 
Pentelicus, but a mass of rugged quartz, beautiful with 
prismatic crystals, and deep veined here and there 
with virgin gold. The early strophes, though opening 
with a fine abrupt line, ' weak- winged is song/ are scarcely 



3G INTRODUCTION 

firm and incisive. Lowell had to work up to his theme. 
In the third division, 'Many loved Truth, and lavished 
life's best oil/ he struck upon a new and musical intona- 
tion of the tenderest thoughts. The quaver of this 
melodious interlude carries the ode along, until the great 
strophe is reached, — 

'Such was he, our Martyr-Chief/ 

in which the man, Abraham Lincoln, whose death had 
but just closed the national tragedy, is delineated in a 
manner that gives this poet a preeminence, among those 
who capture likeness in enduring verse, that we award 
to Velasquez among those who fasten it upon the canvas. 
'One of Plutarch's men' is before us, face to face; an 
historic character whom Lowell fully comprehended, 
and to whose height he reached in this great strophe. 
Scarcely less fine is his tearful, yet transfiguring, Avete 
to the sacred dead of the Commemoration. The weaker 
divisions of the production furnish a background to these 
passages, and at the close the poet rises with the invo- 
cation, — 

'Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release V 

a strain which shows that when Lowell determinedly 
sets his mouth to the trumpet, the blast is that of 
Roncesvalles." 

W. C. Brown ell, the latest critic of Lowell's poetry, 
says of this poem: "The ode is too long, its evolution 
is defective, it contains verbiage, it preaches. But pas- 
sages of it — the most famous having characteristically 
been interpolated after its delivery — are equal to any- 
thing of the kind. The temptation to quote from it is 
hard to withstand. It is the cap-sheaf of Lowell's achieve- 
ment." In this ode "he reaches, if he does not through- 
out maintain, his own ' clcar-ethered height' and his 



INTRODUCTION 37 

verse has the elevation of ecstasy and the splendor of 
the sublime." 

The versification of this poem should be studied with 
some particularity. Of the forms of lyric expression the 
ode is the most elaborate and dignified. It is adapted 
only to lofty themes and stately occasions. Great 
liberty is allowed in the choice and arrangement of its 
meter, rhymes, and stanzaic forms, that its varied form 
and movement may follow the changing phases of the sen- 
timent and passion called forth by the theme. Lowell 
has given us an account of his own consideration of 
this matter. "My problem," he says, "was to con- 
trive a measure which should not be tedious by uniform- 
ity, which should vary with varying moods, in which 
the transitions (including those of the voice) should be 
managed without jar. I at first thought of mixed rhymed 
and blank verses of unequal measures, like those in the 
choruses of Samson Agonistes, which are in the main 
masterly. Of course, Milton deliberately departed from 
that stricter form of Greek chorus to which it was bound 
quite as much (I suspect) by the law of its musical 
accompaniment as by any sense of symmetry. I wrote 
some stanzas of the Commemoration Ode on this theory 
at first, leaving some verses without a rhyme to match. 
But my ear was better pleased when the rhyme, coming 
at a longer interval, as a far-off echo rather than instant 
reverberation, produced the same effect almost, and 
yet was gratified by unexpectedly recalling an associa- 
tion and faint reminiscence of consonance." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Horace E. Sc udder: James Russell Lowell: A Biography. 2 
vols. The standard biography. 

Ferris Greenslet: James Russell Lowell: His Life and Work. 
The latest biography (1905) and very satisfactory. 

Francis H. Underwood: James Russell Lowell: A Biograph- 
ical Sketch and Lowell the Poet and the Man. Interesting 
recollections of a personal friend and editorial associate. 

Edward Everett Hale: Lowell and His Friends. 

Edward Everett Hale, Jr.: James Russell Lowell. (Beacon 
Biographies.) 

Charles Eliot Norton: Letters of James Russell Lowell. 2 
vols. Invaluable and delightful. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman: Poets of America. 

W. C. Brownell: James Russell Lowell. (Scribner's Mag- 
azine, February, 1907.) The most recent critical es- 
timate. 

George William Curtis: James Russell Lowell: An Address. 

John Churton Collins. Studies in Poetry and Criticism, 
" Poetry and Poets of America." Excellent as an 
English estimate. 

Barrett Wendell: Literary History of America and Stelligeri, 
" Mr. Lowell as a Teacher." 

Henry James: Essays in London and Library of the World's 
Best Literature. 

George E. Woodberry: Makers of Literature. 

William Watson: Excursions in Criticism. 

W. D. Howells: Literary Friends and Acquaintance. 

Charles E. Richardson: American Literature. 

M. A, DeWolfe Howe: American Bookmen. 

39 



40 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson: Old Cambridge. 

Frank Preston Stearns: Cambridge Sketches. 1905. 

Richard Burton: Literary Leaders of America. 1904. 

John White Chadwick: Chambers's Cyclopedia of English 
Literature. 

Hamilton Wright Mabie: My Study Fire. Second Series, 
" Lowell's Letters." 

Margaret Fuller: Art, Literature and the Drama. 1859. 

Richard Henry Stoddard: Recollections, Personal and Lit- 
erary, " At Lowell's Fireside." 

Edwin P. Whipple: Outlooks on Society, Literature and Pol- 
itics, " Lowell as a Prose Writer.''' 

H. R. Haweis: American Humorists. 

Bayard Taylor: Essays and Notes. 

G. W. Smalley: London Letters, Vol. I., "Mr. Lowell, why 
the English liked him." 

THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO LOWELL 

Longfellow's Herons of Elmwood; Whittier's A Welcome to 
Lowell; Holmes's Farewell to Lowell, At a Birthday Festival, 
and To James Russell Lowell; Aldrich's Elmwood; Margaret 
J. Preston's Home-Welcome to Lowell; Richard Watson 
Gilder's Lowell; Christopher P. Cranch's To J. R. L. on His 
Fiftieth Birthday, and To J. R. L. on His Homeward Voy- 
age; James Kenneth Stephen's In Memoriam; James Russell 
Lowell, " Lapsus Calami and Other Verses " ; William W. 
Story's To James Russell Lowell, Blackwood's Magazine, 
Vol. 150; Eugene Field's James Russell Lowell; Editb 
Thomas's On Reading Lowell 's " Heartsease and Rue." 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

And Other Poems 

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Prelude to Part First 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his 
lay: 
5 Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his 
theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

Not only around our infancy 

10 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 
41 



42 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Over our manhood bend the skies; 
Against our fallen and traitor lives 
15 The great winds utter prophecies; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 
20 Still shouts the inspiring sea. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives usj 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives 
us, 
We bargain for the graves we lie in; 
25 At the DeviPs booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking 
'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
30 'T is only God may be had for the asking; 
No price is set on the lavish summer; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June? 
Then, if ever, come perfect days; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 43 

35 Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 
40 An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
The flush of life may well be seen 
Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
45 The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chal- 
ice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
50 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o 'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and 
sings; 
55 He sings to the wide world, and she to her 
nest, — 



44 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the 
best? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer, 
60 Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are 
green; 
65 We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help 

knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear 
70 That dandelions are blossoming near, 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are 
flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 45 

75 For other couriers we should not lack; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's low- 
ing, — 
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing! 

80 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 
85 J T is the natural way of living : 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled? 
In the unscarred heaven they leave no 
wake; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; 
90 The soul partakes the season's youth, 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
95 Remembered the keeping of his vow? 



46 the vision of sir launfal 

Part First 

i 

"My golden spurs now bring to me, 
And bring to me my richest mail, 

For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
In search of the Holy Grail; 
100 Shall never a bed for me be spread, 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 

Till I begin my vow to keep; 

Here on the rushes will I sleep, 

And perchance there may come a vision true 
105 Ere day create the world anew." 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 
Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 

And into his soul the vision flew. 

ii 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

110 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their 

knees, 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year, 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 47 

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the 
trees : 

The castle alone in the landscape lay 
115 lake an outpost of winter, dull and gray; 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Coun- 
tree, 

And never its gates might opened be, 

Save to lord or lady of high degree; 

Summer besieged it on every side, 
120 But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 

Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 

Stretched left and right, 

Over the hills and out of sight; 
125 Green and broad was every tent, 
And out of each a murmur went 

Till the breeze fell off at night. 

in 
The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
130 Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 



48 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its 
wall 
In his siege of three hundred summers 
long, 
135 And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 
Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, 
And lightsome as a locust leaf, 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV 

140 It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 
And morning in the young knight's heart; 
Only the castle moodily 
Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart; 
145 The season brimmed all other things up 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup, 

v 
As Sir Launfal made morn through the dark- 
some gate, 
He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the 
same, 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 49 

Who begged with his hand and moaned as he 
sate; 
150 And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 
The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and 
crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 
Like a frozen waterfall; 
155 For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
And seemed the one blot on the summer 

morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 
" Better to me the poor man's crust, 
160 Better the blessing of the poor, 

Though I turn me empty from his door, 
That is no true alms which the hand can 

hold; 
He gives only the worthless gold 
165 Who gives from a sense of duty; 
But he who gives a slender mite, 



50 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

And gives to that which is out of sight, 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
170 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness be- 
fore." 

Prelude to Part Second 

Down swept the chill wind from the moun- 
tain peak, 
175 From the snow five thousand summers old; 
On open wold and hill-top bleak 

It had gathered all the cold, 
And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's 

cheek; 
It carried a shiver everywhere 
180 From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 
The little brook heard it and built a roof 
'Neath which he could house him, winter- 
proof; 
All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 
He groined his arches and matched his beams; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 51 

185 Slender and clear were his crystal spars 
As the lashes of light that trim the stars; 
He sculptured every summer delight 
In his halls and chambers out of sight; 
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

190 Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 
Bending to counterfeit a breeze; 
Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 
But silvery mosses that downward grew; 

195 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, 

and here 
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

200 And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 
That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 
And made a star of every one : 
No mortal builder's most rare device 
Could match this winter-palace of ice; 

205 J T was as if every image that mirrored lay 
In his depths serene through the summer day, 
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 



52 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 
210 By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly; 
215 Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 
220 Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 
And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in 
fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 

225 But the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir LaunfaPs gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 53 

Singing, in dreary monotone, 
230 A Christmas carol of its own, 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 

Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" 

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the 
porch, 
235 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 

Part Second 

i 
240 There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
245 From his shining feathers shed off the cold 
sun; 



54 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 

II 

250 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 
For another heir in his earldom sate; 
An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; 
Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

255 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the 
cross, 
But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 
The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

in 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
260 For it was just at the Christmas time; 
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 
In the light and warmth of long ago; 
He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 55 

265 'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 
He can count the camels in the sun, 
As over the red-hot sands they pass 
To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 

270 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade., 
And with its own self like an infant played, 
And waved its signal of palms. 

IV 

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;" 
The happy camels may reach the spring, 
275 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 

v 
280 And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree; 
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, 
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and 
scorns, — ■ 



56 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

And to thy life were not denied 
285 The wounds in the hands and feet and side: 
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; 
Behold, through him ; I give to thee!" 

VI 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway 
he 
290 Remembered in what a haughtier guise 
He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust; 
295 He parted in twain his single crust, 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink; 
T was a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, 
T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
300 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 
And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty 
soul. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 57 

VII 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 
A light shone round about the place; 
The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
305 But stood before him glorified, 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful 

Gate, — 
Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII 

310 His words were shed softer than leaves from 
the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the 

brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 
And the voice that was softer than silence 
said, 
315 "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 
In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 



58 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 

320 This crust is my body broken for thee, 
This water his blood that died on the tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need, — 
Not what we give, but what we share, — 

325 For the gift without the giver is bare; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

IX 

Sir Launf al awoke as from a swound : — 
"The Grail in my castle here is found! 
330 Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 
Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 

x 

The castle gate stands open now, 
335 And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 
As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; 

No longer scowl the turrets tall, 
The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 59 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 
340 She entered with him in disguise, 

And mastered the fortress by surprise; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year 
round; 

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 
345 Has hall and bower at his command; 

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 

There came a youth upon the earth, 

Some thousand years ago, 
Whose slender hands were nothing worth, 
Whether to plow, or reap, or sow. 

5 He made a lyre, and drew therefrom 
Music so strange and rich, 
That all men loved to hear, — and some 
Muttered of fagots for a witch. 

But King Admetus, one who had 
10 Pure taste by right divine, 



60 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETVS 

Decreed his singing not too bad 
To hear between the cups of wine 

And so, well pleased with being soothed 
Into a sweet half-sleep, 
15 Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, 
And made him viceroy o 'er his sheep. 

His words were simple words enough, 

And yet he used them so, 
That what in other mouths were rough 
20 In his seemed musical and low. 

Men called him but a shiftless youth, 

In whom no good they saw; 
And yet, unwittingly, in truth, 
They made his careless words their law. 

25 They knew not how he learned at all, 
For, long hour after hour, 
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, 
Or mused upon a common flower. 

It seemed the loveliness of things 
30 Did teach him all their use, 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR CI 

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, 
He found a healing power profuse. 

Men granted that his speech was wise, 
But, when a glance they caught 
35 Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. 

Yet after he was dead and gone, 

And e 'en his memory dim, 
Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 
40 More full of love, because of him. 

And day by day more holy grew 
Each spot where he had trod, 
Till after-poets only knew 
Their first-born brother as a god. 

AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 

He spoke of Burns : men rude and rough 
Pressed round to hear the praise of one 

Whose heart was made of manly, simple, 
stuff, 
As homespun as their own. 



62 AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 

5 And, when he read, they forward leaned, 
Drinking, with eager hearts and ears, 
His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned 
From humble smiles and tears. 

Slowly there grew a tender awe, 
10 Sunlike, o 'er faces brown and hard, 
As if in him who read they felt and saw 
Some presence of the bard. 

It was a sight for sin and wrong 
And slavish tyranny to see, 
15 A sight to make our faith more pure and 
strong 
In high humanity. 

I thought, these men will carry hence 
Promptings their former life above, 
And something of a finer reverence 
20 For beauty, truth, and love. 

God scatters love on every side, 

Freely among his children all, 
And always hearts are lying open wide, 

Wherein some grains may fall. 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 63 

25 There is no wind but soweth seeds 
Of a more true and open life, 
Which burst unlooked for, into high-souled 
deeds, 
With wayside beauty rife. 

We find within these souls of ours 
30 Some wild germs of a higher birth, 

Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers 
Whose fragrance fills the earth. 

Within the hearts of all men lie 
These promises of wider bliss, 
35 Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, 
In sunny hours like this. 

All that hath been majestical 

In life or death, since time began, 
Is native in the simple heart of all, 
40 The angel heart of man. 

And thus, among the untaught poor, 
Great deeds and feelings find a home, 

That cast in shadow all the golden lore 
Of classic Greece and Rome. 



64 AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 

45 0, mighty brother-soul of man, 

Where 'er thou art, in low or high, 
Thy skyey arches with exulting span 
O'er-roof infinity! 

All thoughts that mould the age begin 
50 Deep down within the primitive soul, 
And from the many slowly upward win 
To one who grasps the whole. 

In his wide brain the feeling deep 
That struggled on the many's tongue 
55 Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap 
'er the weak thrones of wrong. 

All thought begins in feeling, — wide 

In the great mass its base is hid, 
And, narrowing up to thought, stands glori- 
fied, 
60 A moveless pyramid. 

Nor is he far astray, who deems 

That every hope, which rises and grows 
broad 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 65 

In the world's heart, by ordered impulse 
streams 
From the great heart of God. 

65 God wills, man hopes; in common souls 
Hope is but vague and undefined, 
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls 
A blessing to his kind. 

Never did Poesy appear 
70 So full of heaven to me, as when 

I saw how it would pierce through pride and 
fear, 
To the lives of coarsest men. 

It may be glorious to write 

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 
75 High souls, like those far stars that come in 
sight 
Once in a century; — 

But better far it is to speak 

One simple word, which now and then 
Shall waken their free nature in the weak 
80 And friendless sons of men; 



66 HEBE 

To write some earnest verse or line 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, 

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the untutored heart. 

85 He who doth this, in verse or prose, 
May be forgotten in his day, 
But surely shall be crowned at last with those 
Who live and speak for aye. 

HEBE 

I saw the twinkle of white feet, 
I saw the flash of robes descending; 

Before her ran an influence fleet, 
That bowed my heart like barley bending. 

5 As, in bare fields, the searching bees 
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, 

It led me on, by sweet degrees 
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. 

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; 
10 With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me; 
The long-sought Secret's golden gates 
On musical hinges swung before me. 



TO THE DANDELION 67 

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp 
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover 
15 I sprang the proffered life to clasp ; — 
The beaker fell; the luck was over. 

The Earth has drunk the vintage up; 
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? 
Can Summer fill the icy cup, 
20 Whose treacherous crystal is. but Winter's? 

spendthrift Haste! await the gods; 
Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience; 

Haste scatters on unthankful sods 
The immortal gift in vain libations. 

25 Coy Hebe flies from those that woo. 
And shuns the hands would seize upon her; 

Follow thy life, and she will sue 
To pour for thee the cup of honor. 

TO THE DANDELION 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the 

way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 



68 TO THE DANDELION 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, up- 
hold, 
5 High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth — thou art more dear to 

me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

10 Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish 
prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 
'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters 
now 
15 To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; 
20 To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; 



TO THE DANDELION 69 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time . 
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment 
25 In the white lily's breezy tent, 

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, — ■ 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 
30 Where, as the breezes pass, 

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, — ■ 
. Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
That from the distance sparkle through 
35 Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth 
move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked 

with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 
Who, from the dark old tree 
40 Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 



70 TO THE DANDELION 

And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from Heaven, which he could 
bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
45 When birds and flowers and I were happy 
peers. 

Thou art the type of those meek charities 
Which make up half the nobleness of life, 

Those cheap delights the wise 
Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife; 
50 Words of frank cheer ; glances of friendly eyes, 
Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may 
give 

The morsel that may keep alive 
A starving heart, and teach it to behold 
Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. 

55 Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, 
Are like the words of poet and of sage 
Which through the free heaven fare, 
And, now unheeded, in another age 
Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 



TO THE DANDELION 71 

60 That witness which the present would not heed, 
Bringing forth many a thought and deed, 
And, planted safely in the eternal sky, 
Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. 

Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full 
65 Than all thy common brethren of the ground, 
Wherein, were we not dull, 
Some words of highest wisdom might be found, 
Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull 
Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make 
70 A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, 

And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us 

still, 
Yea, nearer ever than the gates of 111. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 
75 Thou teachest me to deem 

More sacredly of every human heart, 
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret 
show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 



72 MY LOVE 

80 And with a child's imdoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 

But let me read thy lesson right or no, 
Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure; 
Old I shall never gt*ow 
85 While thou each year dost come to keep me 
pure 
With legends of my childhood; ah, we owe 
Well more than half life's holiness to these 

Nature's first lowly influences, 
At thought of which the heart's glad doors 
burst ope, 
90 In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. 

MY LOVE 

Not as all other women are 

Is she that to my soul is dear; 
Her glorious fancies come from far, 
Beneath the silver evening-star, 
5 And yet her heart is ever near. 

Great feelings hath she of her own, 
Which lesser souls may never know; 



MY LOVE 73 

God giveth them to her alone, 
And sweet they are as any tone 
10 Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. 

Yet in herself she dwelleth not, 

Although no home were half so fair; 
No simplest duty is forgot, 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
15 That doth not in her sunshine share. 

She doeth little kindnesses, 

Which most leave undone, or despise; 
For naught that sets one heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace, 
20 Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 

She hath no scorn of common things, 

And, though she seem of other birth, 
Round us her heart entwines and clings, 
And patiently she folds her wings 
25 To tread the humble paths of earth. 

Blessing she is : God made her so, 
And deeds of week-day holiness 



74 MY LOVE 

Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 
30 That aught were easier than to bless. 

She is most fair, and thereunto 

Her life doth rightly harmonize; 
Feeling or thought that was not true 
Ne 'er made less beautiful the blue 
35 Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 

She is a woman : one in whom 

The spring-time of her childish years 
Hath never lost its fresh perfume, 
Though knowing well that life hath room 
40 For many blights and many tears. 

I love her with a love as still 

As a broad river's peaceful might, 
Which, by high tower and lowly mill, 
Goes wandering at its own will, 
45 And yet doth ever flow aright. 

And, on its full, deep breast serene, 

Like quiet isles my duties lie; 
It flows around them and between, 



THE CHANGELING 75 

And makes them fresh and fair and green, 
50 Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 

THE CHANGELING 

I had a little daughter, 

And she was given to me 
To lead me gently backward 

To the Heavenly Father's knee, 
5 That I, by the force of nature, 

Might in some dim wise divine 
The depth of his infinite patience 

To this wayward soul of mine. 

I know not how others saw her, 
10 But to me she was wholly fair, 

And the light of the heaven she came from 

Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; 
For it was as wavy and golden, 
And as many changes took, 
15 As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 
On the yellow bed of a brook. 

To what can I liken her smiling 
Upon me, her kneeling lover? 



76 THE CHANGELING 

How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, 
20 And dimpled her wholly over, 

Till her outstretched hands smiled also, 

And I almost seemed to see 
The very heart of her mother 

Sending sun through her veins to me! 

25 She had been with us scarce a twelve-month, 
And it hardly seemed a day, 
When a troop of wandering angels 

Stole my little daughter away; 
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 
30 But loosed the hampering strings, 

And when they had opened her cage-door, 
My little bird used her wings. 

But they left in her stead a changeling, 
A little angel child, 
35 That seems like her bud in full blossom, 
And smiles as she never smiled : 
When I wake in the morning, I see it 

Where she always used to lie, 
And I feel as weak as a violet 
40 Alone 'neath the awful sky. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 77 

As weak, yet as trustful also; 

For the whole year long I see 
All the wonders of faithful Nature 

Still worked for the love of me; 
45 Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 

Rain falls, suns rise and set, 
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 

A poor little violet. 

This child is not mine as the first was, 
50 I cannot sing it to rest, 
I cannot lift it up fatherly 

And bliss it upon my breast; 
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle 
And sits in my little one's chair, 
55 And the light of the heaven she 's gone to 
Transfigures its golden hair. 

AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

What visionary tints the year puts on, 
When falling leaves falter through motion- 
less air 

Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone ! 
How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, 



78 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

5 As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 

The bowl between me and those distant 
hills, 
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, 
tremulous hair! 

No more the landscape holds its wealth 
apart, 
Making me poorer in my poverty, 
10 But mingles with my senses and my 

heart; 
My own projected spirit seems to me 
In her own reverie the world to steep; 
'T is she that waves to sympathetic 
sleep, 
M wing, as she is moved, each field and hill 
and tree. 

15 How fuse and mix, with what unfelt 

degrees, 
Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, 

Each into each, the hazy distances! 
The softened season all the landscape charms; 
Those hills, my native village that embay, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 79 

20 In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 

And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering 
farms. 

Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
Close at my side; far distant sound the 
leaves; 
The fields seem fields of dream, where 
Memory 
25 Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the 
sheaves 
Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye 
Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, 
So tremble and seem remote all things the 
sense receives. 

The cock's shrill trump that tells of scat- 
tered corn, 
30 Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 
Faint and more faint, from barn to barn 
is borne, 
Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; 
Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; 
Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 



80 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

35 With watchful, measuring eye, and for his 
quarry waits. 

The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, 
Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; 
The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's 
bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward eye and 
ear, 
40 Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a 

bound 
Whisks to his winding fastness under- 
ground; 
The clouds like swans drift down the stream- 
ing atmosphere. 

O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar 
shadows 
Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the plough- 
man's call 
45 Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh- 

furrowed meadows; 
The single crow a single caw lets fall; 
And all around me every bush and tree 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 81 

Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon 
will be, 
Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence 
over all. 

50 The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 

Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, 
And hints at her foregone gentilities 
With some saved relics of her wealth of 
leaves; 
The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, 
55 Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, 

As one who proudlier to a falling fortune 
cleaves. 

He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, 
Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed 
whites, 
Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, 
60 With distant eye broods over other sights, 
Sees the hushed wood the city's flare re- 
place, 
The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's 
trace, 



82 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

And roams the savage Past of his undwindled 
rights. 

The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for 
lost, 
65 And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, 
After the first betrayal of the frost, 
Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky; 

The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid 

gold, 
To the faint Summer, beggared now and 
old, 
70 Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her 
favoring eye. 

The ash her purple drops forgivingly 
And sadly, breaking not the general hush; 

The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, 
Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; 
75 All round the wood's edge creeps the 

skirting blaze 
Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, 
Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns 
his brush. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 83 

O'er yon low wall, which guards one un- 
kempt zone, 
Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks 
intertwine 
80 Safe from the plough, whose rough, dis- 

cordant stone 
Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, 
The tangled blackberry, crossed and re- 
crossed, weaves 
A prickly network of ensanguined leaves, 
Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black- 
alders shine. 

85 Pillaring with flame this crumbling bound- 

ary, 
Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough- 
boy's foot, 
Who, with each sense shut fast except 
the eye, 
Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to 
shoot, 
The woodbine up the elm's straight stem 
aspires, 
90 Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires, 



84 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands 
mute. 

Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky, 
Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, 
Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps 
bellying by, 
95 Now flickering golcjen through a woodland 
screen, 
Then spreading out, at his next turn be- 
yond, 
A silver circle like an inland pond — 
Slips seaward silently through marshes purple 
and green. 

Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of 
sight 
100 Who cannot in their various incomes share, 
From every season drawn, of shade and 
light, 
Who sees in them but levels brown and 
bare; 
Each change of storm or sunshine scatters 
free 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 85 

On them its largess of variety, 
105 For Nature with cheap means still works her 
wonders rare. 

In spring they lie one broad expanse of 
green, 
O 'er which the light winds run with glimmer- 
ing feet : 
Here, yellower stripes track out the creek 
unseen, 
There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches 
meet; 
110 And purpler stains show where the blos- 

soms crowd, 
As if the silent shadow of a cloud 
Hung there becalmed, with the next breath 
to fleet. 

All round, upon the river's slippery edge, 
Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, 
115 Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling 

sedge; 
Through emerald glooms the lingering 
waters slide, 



86 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the 

sun, 
And the stiff banks in eddies melt and 

run 
Of dimpling light, and with the current seem 

to glide. 

120 In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see, 

As, step by step, with measured swing, 
they pass, 
The wide-ranked mowers wading to the 
knee, 
Their sharp scythes panting through the 
wiry grass; 
Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in 
a ring, 
125 Their nooning take, while one begins to 

sing 
A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close 
sky of brass. 

Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobo- 
link, 
Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 87 

Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremu- 
lous brink, 
130 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 
A decorous bird of business, who provides 
For his brown mate and fledglings six 
besides, 
And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid 
his crops. 

Another change subdues them in the fall, 
135 But saddens not; they still show merrier 
tints, 
Though sober russet seems to cover all; 
When the first sunshine through their dew- 
drops glints, 
Look how the yellow clearness, streamed 

across, 
Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, 
140 As Dawn's feet there had touched and left 
their rosy prints. 

Or come when sunset gives its freshened 
zest, 
Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, 



£8 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

While the shorn sun swells down the hazy 
west, 
Glow opposite; — the marshes drink their fill 
145 And swoon with purple veins, then slowly 

fade 
Through pink to brown, as eastward moves 
the shade, 
Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's 
darkening hill. 

Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts, 
Ere through the first dry snow the runner 
grates, 
150 And the loath cart-wheel screams in slip- 

pery ruts, 
While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, 

Trying each buckle and strap beside the 

fire, 
And until bedtime plays with his desire, 
Twenty times putting on and off his new- 
bought skates; — • 

155 Then, every morn, the river's banks shine 

bright 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 89 

With smooth plate-armor ; treacherous and 
frail ; 
By the frost's clinking hammers forged at 
night, 
'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, 
Giving a pretty emblem of the day 
160 When guiltier arms in light shall melt 

away, 
And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from 
war's cramping mail. 

And now those waterfalls the ebbing river 
Twice every day creates on either side 
Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred 
grots they shiver 
165 In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; 
High flaps in sparkling blue the far- 
heard crow, 
The silvered flats gleam frostily below, 
Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy 
tide. 

But crowned in turn by vying seasons 
three, 



90 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

170 Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 

This glory seems to rest immovably, — 
The others were too fleet and vanishing; 
When the hid tide is at its highest flow, 
O'er marsh and stream one breathless 
trance of snow 
175 With brooding fulness awes and hushes every- 
thing. 

The sunshine seems blown off by the 
bleak wind, 
As pale as formal candles lit by day; 

Gropes to the sea the river dumb and 
blind; 
The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the 
storm in play, 
180 Show pearly breakers combing o'er their 

lee, 
White crests as of some just enchanted sea, 
Checked in their maddest leap and hanging 
poised midway. 

But when the eastern blow, with rain 
aslant, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 91 

From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling 
plains 
185 Drives in his wallowing herds of billows 

gaunt, 
And the roused Charles remembers in his 
veins 
Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of 

frost, 
That tyrannous silence on the shores is 
tost 
In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation 
reigns. 

190 Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 

With leaden pools between or gullies bare, 
The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge 
of ice; 
No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, 
Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges 
stiff 
195 Down crackles riverward some thaw- 

sapped cliff, 
Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch 
here and there. 



92 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes 
To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: 
Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes 
200 The early evening with her misty dyes 

Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, 
Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, 
And tones the landscape down, and soothes 
the wearied eyes. 

There gleams my native village, dear to 
me, 
205 Though higher change's waves each day are 
seen, 
Whelming fields famed in boyhood's his- 
tory, 
Sanding with houses the diminished green, 
There, in red brick, which softening time 

defies, 
Stand square and stiff the Muses' fac- 
tories; — ■ 
210 How with my life knit up is every well-known 
scene ! 

Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 93 

To outward sight ; and through your marshes 
wind; 
Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, 
Your twin flows silent through my world of 
mind: 
215 Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's 

gray! 

Before my inner sight ye stretch away, 
And will forever, though these fleshly eyes 
grow blind. 

Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, 
Where Gothic chapels house the horse and 
chaise, 
220 Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 

Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer 
and praise, 
Where dust and mud the equal year divide, 
There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, 
and died, 
Transfiguring street and shop with his illu- 
mined gaze. 

225 Virgilium vidi tantum, — I have seen 



94 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

But as a boy, who looks alike on all, 
That misty hair, that fine Undine-like 
mien, 
Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call; — 
Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy 
fame 
230 That thither many times the Painter 

came; — 
One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree 
and tall. 

Swiftly the present fades in memory's 
glow, — 
Our only sure possession is the past; 

The village blacksmith died a month ago, 
235 And dim to me the forge's roaring blast; 
Soon fire-new medievals we shall see 
Oust the black smithy from its chestnut- 
tree, 
And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive 
green and vast. 

How many times, prouder than king on 
throne, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 95 

240 Loosed from the village school-dame's A's 

and B's, 

Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, 

And watched the pent volcano's red increase, 

Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, 

brought down 
By that hard arm voluminous and brown, 
245 From the white iron swarm its golden van- 
ishing bees. 

Dear native town! whose choking elms 
each year 
With eddying dust before their time turn 
gray, 
Pining for rain, — to me thy dust is 
dear; 
It glorifies the eve of summer day, 
250 And when the westering sun half sunken 

burns, 
The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, 
The westward horseman rides through clouds 
of gold away, 

So palpable, I Ve seen those unshorn few, 



96 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

The six old willows at the causey's end 
255 (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed 

nor drew), 
Through this dry mist their checkering 
shadows send, 
Striped, here and there, with many a 

long-drawn thread, 
Where streamed through leafy chinks the 
trembling red, 
Past which, in one bright trail, the hang- 
bird's flashes blend. 

260 Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e 'er, 

Beneath the awarded crown of victory, 

Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; 
Though lightly prized the ribboned parch- 
ments three, 
Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad 
265 That here what colleging was mine I 

had, — 
It linked another tie, dear native town, with 
theel 

Nearer art thou than simply native earth, 



THE OAK 97 

My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; 

A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, 

270 Something of kindred more than sympathy; 

For in thy bounds I reverently laid away 

That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, 

That title I seemed to have in earth and sea 

and sky, 

That portion of my life more choice to 
me 
275 (Though brief, yet in itself so round and 
whole) 
Than all the imperfect residue can be; — 
The Artist saw his statue of the soul 

Was perfect; so ; with one regretful stroke, 
The earthen model into fragments broke, 
280 And without her the impoverished seasons 
roll. 

THE OAK 

What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, 
is his! 
There needs no crown to mark the forest's 
king; 



98 THE OAK 

How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! 
Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute 
bring, 
5 Which he with such benignant royalty 
Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; 
All nature seems his vassal proud to be, 
And cunning only for his ornament. 

How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, 
10 An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 
Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly 
shows, 
Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are 
flown. 
His boughs make music of the winter air, 
Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral 
front 
15 Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art 
repair 
The dents and furrows of time's envious 
brunt. 

How doth his patient strength the rude March 
wind 



THE OAK 99 

Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer 
breeze, 
And win the soil, that fain would be unkind, 
20 To swell his revenues with proud increase! 
He is the gem; and all the landscape wide 

(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) 
Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, 
An empty socket, were he fallen thence. 

25 So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 
Should man learn how to clasp with tougher 
roots 
The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails 

The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots? 
So every year that falls with noiseless flake 
30 Should fill old scars up on the storm ward side, 
And make hoar age revered for age's sake, 
Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride. 

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, 
True hearts compel the sap of sturdier 
growth, 
35 So between earth and heaven stand simply 
great, 



100 BEAVER BROOK 

That these shall seem but their attendants 
both; 
For nature's forces with obedient zeal 

Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; 
As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, 
40 And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock 
him still. 

Lord! all Thy works are lessons; each contains 
Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; 
Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, 
Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? 
45 Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 

Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, 
Speak but a word through me, nor let thy 
love 
Among my boughs disdain to perch and 
sing. 

BEAVER BROOK 

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, 
And, minuting the long day's loss, 
The cedar's shadow, slow and still, 
Creeps o 'er its dial of gray moss. 



BEAVER BROOK 101 

5 Warm noon brims fall the valley's cup, 
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; 
Only the little mill sends up 
Its busy, never-ceasing burr. 

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 
10 The road along the mill-pond's brink, 
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems 
My footstep scares the shy chewink. 

Beneath a bony buttonwood 
The mill's red door lets forth the din; 
15 The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 
Flits past the square of dark within. 

No mountain torrent's strength is here; 
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, 
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, 
20 And gently waits the miller's will. 

Swift slips Undine along the race 
Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, 
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, 
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. 



102 BEAVER BROOK 

25 The miller dreams not at what cost 

The quivering millstones hum and whirl, 
Nor how for every turn are tost 
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. 

But Summer cleared my happier eyes 
30 With drops of some celestial juice, 
To see how Beauty underlies, 
Forevermore each form of use. 

And more; me thought I saw that flood, 
Which now so dull and darkling steals, 
35 Thick, here and there, with human blood, 
To turn the world's laborious wheels. 

No more than doth the miller there, 
Shut in our several cells, do we 
Know with what waste of beauty rare 
40 Moves every day's machinery. 

Surely the wiser time shall come 
When this fine overplus of might, 
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, 
Shall leap to music and to light. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 103 

45 In that new childhood of the Earth 
Life of itself shall dance and play, 
Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make 

mirth, 
And labor meet delight half-way. 

THE PRESENT CRISIS 

When a deed is done for Freedom, through 

the broad earth's aching breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on 

from east to west, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the 

soul within him climb 
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy 

sublime 
5 Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the 

thorny stem of Time. 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots 
the instantaneous throe, 

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's 
systems to and fro; . 

At the birth of each new Era, with a recog- 
nizing start, 



104 THE PRESENT CRISIS 

Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with 
mute lips apart, 
10 And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps 
beneath the Future's heart. 

So the EviPs triumph sendeth, with a terror 
and a chill, 

Under continent to continent, the sense of com- 
ing ill, 

And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his 
sympathies with God 

In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be 
drunk up by the sod, 
15 Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving 
in the nobler clod. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct 
bears along, 

Round the earth's electric circle, the swift 
flash of right or wrong; 

Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Human- 
ity's vast frame 

Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the 
gush of joy or shame; — 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 105 

20 In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have 
equal claim. 

Once to every man and nation comes the 
moment to decide, 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the 
good or evil side; 

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offer- 
ing each the bloom or blight, 

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the 
sheep upon the right, 
25 And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that 
darkness and that light. 

Hast thou chosen, my people, on whose 

party thou shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes 

the dust against our land? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is 

Truth alone is strong, 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see 

around her throng 
30 Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield 

her from all wrong. 



106 THE PRESENT CRISIS 

Backward look across the ages and the beacon- 
moments see, 

That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut 
through Oblivion's sea; 

Not an ear in court or market for the low 
foreboding cry 

Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from 
whose feet earth's chaff must fly; 
35 Never shows the choice momentous till the 
judgment hath passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's 
pages but record 

One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old 
systems and the Word; 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever 
on the Throne, — 

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, be- 
hind the dim unknown, 
40 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping 
watch above his own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is smal 1 
and what is great, 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 107 

Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the 
iron helm of fate, 

But the soul is still oracular; amid the mar- 
ket's din, 

List the ominous stern whisper from the Del- 
phic cave within, — 
45 "They enslave their children's children who 
make compromise with sin." 

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the 
giant brood, 

Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who 
have drenched the earth with blood, 

Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by 
our purer day, 

Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his mis- 
erable prey; — - 
50 Shall we guide his gory fingers where our 
helpless children play? 

Then to side with Truth is noble when we 

share her wretched crust, 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is 

prosperous to be just, 



108 THE PRESENT CRISIS 

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the 

coward stands aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is 
crucified, 
55 And the multitude make virtue of the faith 
they had denied. 

Count me o 'er earth's chosen heroes, — they 

were souls that stood alone, 
While the men they agonized for hurled the 

contumelious stone, 
Stood serene, and down the future saw the 

golden beam incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by 

their faith divine, 
60 By one man's plain truth to manhood and to 

God's supreme design. 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleed- 
ing feet I track, 

Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross 
that turns not back, 

And these mounts of anguish number how 
each generation learned 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 109 

One new word of that grand Credo which in 
prophet- hearts hath burned 
66 Since the first man stood God-conquered with 
his face to heaven upturned. 

For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day 

the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver 

in his hands; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the 

crackling fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent 

awe return 
70 To glean up the scattered ashes into History's 

golden urn. 

*T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle 
slaves 

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' 
graves; 

Worshippers of light ancestral make the pres- 
ent light a crime ; — 

Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, 
steered by men behind their time? 



110 THE PRESENT CRISIS 

75 Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, 
that make Plymouth Rock sublime? 

They were men of present valor, stalwart old 
iconoclasts, 

Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue 
was the Past's; 

But we make their truth our falsehood, think- 
ing that hath made us free, 

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our 
tender spirits flee 
80 The rude grasp of that great Impulse which 
drove them across the sea, 

They have rights who dare maintain them; 
we are traitors to our sires, 

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's 
new-lit altar-fires; 

Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall 
we, in our haste to slay, 

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the 
funeral lamps away 
85 To light up the martyr-fagots round the pro- 
phets of to-day? 



THE COURT IN 9 111 

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes 
ancient good uncouth; 

They must upward still, and onward, who 
would keep abreast of Truth; 

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we our- 
selves must Pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly 
through the desperate winter sea, 
90 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's 
blood-rusted key. 

THE COURTIN' 

God makes sech nights, all white an' still 

Fur 'z you can look or listen, 
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 

All silence an' all glisten. 

5 Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 
An' peeked in thru' the winder, 
An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
With no one nigh to hender. 

A fireplace filled the room's one side 
10 With half a cord o' wood in, — ■ 



!12 THE COURT IN' 

There warn't no stoves till comfort died, 
To bake ye to a puddin'. 

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 
Toward the pootiest ; bless her ! 
15 An' leetle flames danced all about 
The chiny on the dresser. 

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young 
20 Fetched back from Concord busted. 

The very room, coz she was in, 
Seemed warm from floor to ceiling 

An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
Ez the apples she was peelin\ 

25 'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look 
On sech a blessed cretur, 
A dogrose blushin' to a brook 
Ain't modester nor sweeter. 

He was six foot o' man, A 1, 
30 Clearn grit an' human natur'; 



THE COURT IN* 113 

None could n't quicker pitch a ton 
Nor dror a furrer straighter. 

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, 
35 Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells, — 
All is, he could n't love 'em. 

But long o' her his veins 7 ould run 

All crinkly like curled maple, 
The side she breshed felt full o' sun 
40 E2 a south slope in Ap'il. 

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 

Ez hisn in the choir; 
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 

She knowed the Lord was nigher. 

45 An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer. 
When her new meetin'-bunnet 
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
0' blue eyes sot upon it. 

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! 
50 She seemed to 7 ve gut a new soul, 



114 THE COURTIN 9 

For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, 
Down to her very shoe-sole. 

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 
A-raspin' on the scraper, — 
55 All ways to once her feelins flew 
Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 

He kinV l'itered on the mat, 
Some doubtfle o' the sekle, 
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 
60 But hern went pity Zekle. 

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk 
Ez though she wished him furder, 

An' on her apples kep' to work, 
Parin' away like murder. 

65 "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" 

"Wal ... no ... I come designin'" — 
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." 

To say why gals acts so or so, 
70 Or don't, would be presumin' ; 



THE COURT IN* 115 

Mebby to mean yes an' say no 
Comes nateral to women. 

He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
Then stood a spell on t'other, 
75 An' on which one he felt the wust 
He could n't ha' told ye nuther. 

Says he, "I'd better call agin;" 

Says she, "Think likely, Mister:" 
That last word pricked him like a pin, 
80 An' . . . Wal, he up an' kist her. 

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 

Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 

An' teary roun' the lashes. 

85 For she was jist the quiet kind 
Whose naturs never vary, 
Like streams that keep a summer mind 
Snowhid in Jenooary. 

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued 
90 Too tight for all expressing 



116 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

Tell mother see how metters stood, 
An' gin 'em both her blessing 

Then her red come back like the tide 
Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
95 An' all I know is they was cried 
In meetin' come nex' Sunday. 

ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COM- 
MEMORATION 

JULY 21, 1865 
I 

Weak-winged is song, 
Nor aims at that clear-ethered height 
Whither the brave deed climbs for light: 
We seem to do them wrong, 
5 Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse 
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler 

verse, 
Our trivial song to honor those who come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and 

drum, 
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 117 

10 Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and 
fire: 
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common 
grave 
Of the unventurous throng. 

II 

15 To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood 
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, 
And offered their fresh lives to make it 
good: 
No lore of Greece or Rome, 
20 No science peddling with the names of things, 
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, 

Can lift our life with wings 
Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many 
waits, 
And lengthen out our dates 
25 With that clear fame whose memory sings 
In manly hearts to come, and nerves them 
and dilates: 



118 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all! 
Not such the trumpet-call 
Of thy diviner mood, 
30 That could thy sons entice 

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest 
Of those half-virtues which the world calls 
best, 
Into War's tumult rude; 
But rather far that stern device 
35 The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood 
In the dim, unventured wood, 
The Veritas that lurks beneath 
The letter's unprolific sheath, 
Life of whatever makes life worth living, 
40 Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 
One heavenly thing whereof earth hath 
the giving. 

in 
Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 

Amid the dust of books to find her, 
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, 
45 With the cast mantle she hath left behind 

her. 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 119 

Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her; 
But these, our brothers, fought for her, 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
50 So loved her that they died for her, 

Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness: 
Their higher instinct knew 
Those love her best who to themselves are 
true, 
55 And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; 
They followed her and found her 
Where all may hope to find, 
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, 
But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round 
her. 
60 Where faith made whole with deed 

Breathes its awakening breath 
Into the lifeless creed, 
They saw her plumed and mailed, 
With sweet, stern face unveiled, 
65 And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them 
in death. 



120 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

IV 

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides 
Into the silent hollow of the past; 

What is there that abides 
To make the next age better for the last? 
70 Is earth too poor to give us 

Something to live for here that shall out- 
live us, — 
Some more substantial boon 
Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's 
fickle moon? 
The little that we see 
75 From doubt is never free; 

The little that we do 
Is but half -nobly true; 
With our laborious hiving 
What men call treasure, and the gods call 
dross, 
80 Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 
Only secure in every one's conniving, 
A long account of nothings paid with loss, 
Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen 
wires, 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 121 

After our little hour of strut and rave, 
85 With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 
Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, 
Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 

Ah, there is something here 
Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 
90 Something that gives our feeble light 

A high immunity from Night, 
Something that leaps life's narrow bars 
To claim its birthright with the hosts of 
heaven; 
A seed of sunshine that doth leaven 
95 Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, 
And glorify our clay 
With light from fountains elder than the 
Day; 
A conscience more divine than we, 
A gladness fed with secret tears, 
100 A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
Of some more noble permanence; 

A light across the sea, 
Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, 
Still glimmering from the heights of unde- 
generate years. 



122 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

V 

106 Whither leads the path 

To ampler fates that leads? 
Not down through flowery meads, 
To reap an aftermath 
Of youth's vainglorious weeds, 
110 But up the steep, amid the wrath 

And shock of deadly hostile creeds, 
Where the world's best hope and stay 
By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, 
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 
115 Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 

Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
Lights the black lips of cannon, and the sword 

Dreams in its easeful sheath; 
But some day the live coal behind the thought, 
120 Whether from Baal's stone obscene, 

Or from the shrine serene 
Of God's pure altar brought, 
Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen 
Learns with what deadly purpose it was 
fraught, 
125 And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 123 

Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men : 
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, 
And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my 
praise, 
130 And not myself was loved? Prove now thy 
truth; 
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; 
Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, 
The victim of thy genius, not its mate!" 
Life may be given in many ways, 
135 And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 
So generous is Fate; 
But then to stand beside her, 
When craven churls deride her, 
140 To front a lie in arms and not to yield, — 
This shows, methinks, God's plan 
And measure of a stalwart man, 
Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid 
earth, 
145 Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 



124 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

XI 

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led, 
With ashes on her head, 
150 Wept with the passion of an angry grief: 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 
Nature, they say, doth dote, 
155 And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan, 
Repeating us by rote: 
For him her Old-World mould aside she 
threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
160 Of the unexhausted West, 

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and 
true. 
How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
165 Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 125 

Not lured by any cheat of birth, 
But by his clear-grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 
170 They knew that outward grace is dust; 

They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again 
and thrust. 
175 . Nothing of Europe here, 

Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface; 
Here was a type of the true elder race, 
180 And one of Plutarch's men talked with us 
face to face. 
I praise him not; it were too late; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 
185 Safe in himself as in a fate. 

So always firmly he: 
He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide, 



12C ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
190 Till the wise years decide. 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a 
tower, 
195 Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first Ameri- 
can. 

VII 

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 
200 Or only guess some more inspiring goal 

Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, 
Along whose course the flying axles burn 
Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier 
brood; 
Long as below we cannot find 
205 The meed that stills the inexorable mind; 
So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
Under whatever, mortal names it masks, 



ODK RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 127 

Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood 
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 
210 Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 

While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, 
And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it 
asks, 
Shall win man's praise and woman's love. 
Shall be a wisdom that we set above 
215 All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 

A virtue round whose forehead we en- 
wreathe 
Laurels that with a living passion breathe 
When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere. 
What brings us thronging these high rites 
to pay, 
220 And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 
Save that our brothers found this better 
way? 

VIII 

We sit here in the Promised Land 
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; 
But 't was they won it, sword in hand, 
225 Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 



128 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

We welcome back our bravest and our 

best; — ■ 
Ah me! not all! some come not with the 
rest, 
Who went forth brave and bright as any here! 
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 
230 But the sad strings complain, 

And will not please the ear; 
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away in pain. 
235 In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf 

wraps, 
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain : 
Fitlier may others greet the living, 
For me the past is unforgiving; 
240 I with uncovered head 

Salute the sacred dead, 
Who went, and who return not. — Say not so! 
'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 
But the high faith that failed not by the way; 
245 Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 
No ban of endless night exiles the brave; 






ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 129 

And to the saner mind 

We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. 

Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! 
250 For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 

I see them muster in a gleaming row, 

With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; 

We find in our dull road their shining track; 
In every nobler mood 
255 We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 

Part of our life's unalterable good, 

Of all our saintlier aspiration; 

They come transfigured back, 

Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, 
260 Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 

Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! 

IX 

Who now shall sneer? 
Who dare again to say we trace 
Our lines to a plebeian race? 
265 Roundhead and Cavalier! 

Dreams are those names erewhile in battle 

loud; 
Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud, 



130 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

They live but in the ear: 
That is best blood that hath most iron in ? t, 
270 To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 
For what makes manhood dear. 
Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods 

crawl 
Down from some victor in a border-brawl! 
275 How poor their outworn coronets, 

Matched with one leaf of that plain civic 

wreath 
Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, 
Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets 
Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears 
280 Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 
With vain resentments and more vain re- 
grets ! 

x 

Not in anger, not in pride, 
Pure from passion's mixture rude, 
Ever to base earth allied, 
285 But with far-heard gratitude, 

Still with heart and voice renewed, 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 131 

To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, 
The strain should close that consecrates our 
brave. 
Lift the heart and lift the head! 
290 Lofty be its mood and grave, 

Not without a martial ring, 
Not without a prouder tread 
And a peal of exultation: 
Little right has he to sing 
295 Through whose heart in such an hour 

Beats no march of conscious power, 
Sweeps no tumult of elation! 
'Tis no Man we celebrate, 
By his country's victories great, 
300 A- hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 
But the pith and marrow of a Nation 
Drawing force from all her men, 
Highest, humblest, weakest, all, — 
Pulsing it again through them, 
305 Till the basest can no longer cower, 
Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, 
Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. 
Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her 
dower ! 



132 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

How could poet ever tower, 
310 If his passions, hopes, and fears, 

If his triumphs and his tears, 
Kept not measure with his people? 
Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and 

waves! 
Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking 
steeple ! 
315 Banners, advance with triumph, bend your 
staves! 
And from every mountain-peak 
Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, 
Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, 
And so leap on in light from sea to sea, 
320 Till the glad news be sent 

Across a kindling continent, 
Making earth feel more firm and air breathe 

braver : 
"Be proud! for she is saved, and all have 
helped to save her! 
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
325 She of the open soul and open door, 

With room about her hearth for all man- 
kind! 



ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 133 

The helm from her bold front she doth un- 
bind, 
Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, 
330 And bids her navies hold their thunders in. 
No challenge sends she to the elder world, 
That looked askance and hated; a light 

scorn 
Plays on her mouth, as round her mighty 

knees 
She calls her children back, and waits the 
morn 
335 Of nobler day, enthroned between her sub- 
ject seas." 

XI 

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found 
release! 
Thy God, in these distempered days, 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His 
ways, 
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy 
peace! 
340 Bow down in prayer and praise! 

Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! 



134 ODE RECITED AT HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 

And letting thy set lips, 
345 Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 

The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
Among the Nations bright beyond compare? 
350 What were our lives without thee? 

What all our lives to save thee? 

We reck not what we gave thee; 

We will not dare to doubt thee, 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare! 



NOTES 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

1. The Musing organist: There is a peculiar felicity in 
this musical introduction. The poem is like an improvisa- 
tion, and was indeed composed much as a musician impro- 
vises, with swift grasp of the subtle suggestions of musical 
tones. It is a dream, an elaborate and somewhat tangled 
metaphor, full of hidden meaning for the accordant mind, 
and the poet appropriately gives it a setting of music, the 
most symbolic of all the arts. It is an allegory, like any one 
of the adventures in the Fairie Queen, and from the very be- 
ginning the reader must be alive to the symbolic meaning, 
upon which Lowell, unlike Spenser, places chief emphasis, 
rather than upon the narrative. Compare the similar mu- 
sical device in Browning's Aht Vcgler and Adelaide Proctor's 
Lost Chord. 

6. Theme: The theme, subject, or underlying thought 
of the poem is expressed in line 12 below: 

" We Sinais climb and know it not; " 

or more comprehensively in the group of four lines of which 
this is the conclusion. The organist's fingers wander list- 
lessly over the keys at first; then come forms and figures 
from out of dreamland over the bridge of his careless melody, 
and gradually the vision takes consistent and expressive 
shape. So the poet comes upon his central subject, or theme, 
shaped from his wandering thought and imagination. 

7. Auroral flushes: Like the first faint glimmerings of 
light in the East that point out the pathway of the rising 

135 



136 NOTES 

sun, the uncertain, wavering outlines of the poet's vision 
precede the perfected theme that is drawing near. 

9. Not only around our infancy, etc.: The allusion is to 
Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, espe- 
cially these lines: 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day." 

As Lowell's central theme is so intimately associated with 
that of Wordsworth's poem, if not directly suggested by it, 
the two poems should be read together and compared. Lowell 
maintains that " heaven lies about us " not only in our in- 
fancy, but at all times, if only we have the soul to compre- 
hend it. 

12. We Sinais climb, etc.: Mount Sinai was the moun- 
tain in Arabia on which Moses talked with God (Exodus 
xix, xx). God's miracles are taking place about us all the 
time, if only we can emancipate our souls sufficiently to see 
them. From out of our materialized daily lives we may 
rise at any moment, if we will, to ideal and spiritual things. 
In a letter to his nephew Lowell says: " This same name of 
God is written all over the world in little phenomena that 
occur under our eyes every moment, and I confess that I 
feel very much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when 
I cannot translate those hieroglyphics into my own vernac- 
ular." (Letters, I, 164). 



NOTES 137 

Compare the following passage in the poem Bibliolatres: 

" If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor; 
There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less, 
Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, 
Intent on manna still and mortal ends, 
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore." 

15. Prophecies: Prophecy is not only prediction, but 
also any inspired discourse or teaching. Compare the follow- 
ing lines from the poem Freedom, written the same year: 

" Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be 
That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest 
Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, 
Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, 
As on an altar, — can it be that ye 
Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, 
Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains? " 

At the end of this poem Lowell gives his view of " fallen 
and traitor lives." He speaks of the " boundless future " 

of our country — 

" Ours if we be strong; 
Or if we shrink, better remount our ships 
And, fleeing God's express design, trace back 
The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track 
To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse." 

While reading Sir Launfal the fact must be kept in mind 
that Lowell was at the time of writing the poem filled with 
the spirit of freedom and reform, and was writing fiery ar- 
ticles in prose for the Anti- Slavery Standard, expressing his 
bitter indignation at the indifference and lukewarmness of 
the Northern people on the subject of slavery. 

17. Druid wood: The Druids were the aged priests of 
the Celts, who performed their religious ceremonies in the 



138 NOTES 

forests, especially among oaks, which were peculiarly sacred 
to them. Hence the venerable woods, like the aged priests, 
offer their benediction. Every power of nature, the winds, 
the mountain, the wood, the sea, has a symbolic meaning 
which we should be able to interpret for our inspiration and 
uplifting. Read Bryant's A Forest Hymn. 

18. Benedicite: An invocation of blessing. Imperative 
form of the Latin benedicere, to bless. Longfellow speaks 
of the power of songs that — 

" Come like the benediction 
That follows after prayer." 

19-20. Compare these lines with the ninth strophe of 
Wordsworth's Ode. The " inspiring sea " is Wordsworth's 
" immortal sea." Both poets rejoice that some of the im- 
pulses and ideals of youth are kept alive in old age. 

21. Earth gets its price, etc.: Notice the special meaning 
given to Earth here, in contrast with heaven in line 29. Here 
again, the thought is suggested by Wordsworth's Ode, sixth 
strophe : 

" Earth fills our lap with pleasures of her own." 

23. Shrives: The priest shrives one when he hears con- 
fession and grants absolution. 

25. Devil's booth: Expand this metaphor and unfold 
its application to every-day life. 

27. Cap and bells: The conventional dress of the court 
fool, or jester, of the Middle Ages, and, after him, of the stage 
clown, consisted of the " fool's cap " and suit of motley, orna- 
mented with little tinkling bells. 

28. Bubbles we buy, etc.: This line, as first published, 
had " earn " for " buy." 

31. This line read originally: " There is no price set," 
etc. The next line began with " And." 

32-95. This rapturous passage descriptive of June is un- 
questionably the most familiar and most celebrated piece 



NOTES 139 

of nature poetry in our literature. It is not only beautiful 
and inspiring in its felicitous phrasings of external nature, 
but it is especially significant as a true expression of the heart 
and soul of the poet himself. It was always " the high- tide 
of the year " with Lowell in June, when his spirits were in 
fine accord with the universal joy of nature. Wherever 
in his poetry he refers to spring and its associations, he al- 
ways expresses the same ecstasy of delight. The passage 
must be compared with the opening lines of Under the Wil- 
lows (which he at first named A June Idyll): 

" June is the pearl of our New England year. 
Still a surprisal, though expected long, 
Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, 
Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, 
Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, 
With one great gush of blossom storms the world," etc. 

And in Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line the coming of spring 
is delightfully pictured: 

" Our Spring gets everything in tune 
An' gives one leap from April into June," etc. 

In a letter written in June, 1867, Lowell says: " There 
never is such a season, and that shows what a poet God is. 
He says the same thing over to us so often and always new. 
Here I've been reading the same poem for near half a century, 
and never had a notion what the buttercup in the third 
stanza meant before." 

It is worth noting that Lowell's happy June corresponds 
to May in the English poets, as in Wordsworth's Ode: 

" With the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday." 

In New England where " Northern natur " is " slow an' apt 
to doubt," 



140 NOTES 

11 May is a pious fraud of the almanac." 

or as Hosea Biglow says: 

11 Half our May is so awfully like May n't, 
*T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint. " 

41. The original edition has " grasping " instead of 
" groping/' 

42. Climbs to a soul, etc. : In his intimate sympathy with 
nature, Lowell endows her forms with conscious life, as Words- 
worth did, who says in Lines Written in Early Spring: 

" And 't is my faith that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes." 

So Lowell in The Cathedral says: 

" And I believe the brown earth takes delight 
In the new snow-drop looking back at her, 
To think that by some vernal alchemy 
It could transmute her darkness into pearl." 

So again he says in Under the Willows: 

" I in June am midway to believe 
A tree among my far progenitors, 
Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 
Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 
There is between us." 

It must be remembered that this humanizing of nature is 
an attitude toward natural objects characteristic only of 
modern poetry, being practically unknown in English 
poetry before the period of Burns and Wordsworth. 

45. The cowslip startles: Surprises the eye with its bright 
patches of green sprinkled with golden blossoms. Cowslip 
is the common name in New England for the marsh-mari- 
gold, which appears early in spring in low wet meadows, and 



NOTES 141 

furnishes not infrequently a savory " mess of greens " for 
the farmer's dinner- table. 

46. Compare Al Fresco, lines 34-39: 

" The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup 
Its tiny polished urn holds up, 
Filled with ripe summer to the edge, 
The sun in his own wine to pledge." 

56. Nice : Delicately discriminating. 
62. This line originally read " because God so wills it." 
71. Maize has sprouted: There is an anxious period for 
the farmer after his corn is planted, for if the spring is " back- 
ward" and the weather cold, his seed may decay in the ground 
before sprouting. 

73. So in Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, when robin- 
redbreast sees the " hossches'nuts' leetle hands unfold " he 
knows — 

" Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; 
So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, 
He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house." 

77. Note the happy effect of the internal rhyme in this 
line. 

93. Healed with snow: Explain the appropriateness of 
the metaphor. 

94-95. Is the transition here from the prelude to the 
story abrupt, or do the preceding lines lead up to it appro- 
priately? Just why does Sir Launfal now remember his 
vow? Do these lines introduce the " theme " that the 
musing organist has finally found in dreamland, or the sym- 
bolic illustration of his theme? 

97. Richest mail: The knight's coat of mail was usually 
of polished steel, often richly decorated with inlaid patterns 
of gold and jewels. To serve his high purpose, Sir Launfal 
brings forth his most precious treasures. 



142 NOTES 

99. Holy Grail: According to medieval legend, the San- 
greal was the cup or chalice, made of emerald, which was 
used by Christ at the last supper, and in which Joseph of 
Arimathea caught the last drops of Christ's blood when he 
was taken down from the cross. The quest of the Grail is 
the central theme of the Arthurian Romances. Tennyson's 
Holy Grail should be read, and the student should also be 
made familiar with the beautiful versions of the legend in 
Abbey's series of mural paintings in the Boston Public 
Library, and in Wagner's Parsifal. 

103. On the rushes: In ancient halls and castles the floors 
were commonly strewn with rushes. In Taming of the Shrew, 
when preparing for the home-coming of Petruchio and his 
bride, Grumio says: " Is supper ready, the house trimmed, 
rushes strewed, cobwebs swept? " 

109. The crows flapped, etc.: Suggestive of the quiet, 
heavy flight of the crow in a warm day. The beginning and 
the end of the stanza suggest drowsy quiet. The vision 
begins in this stanza. The nature pictures are continued, 
but with new symbolical meaning. 

114. Like an outpost of winter: The cold, gloomy castle 
stands in strong contrast to the surrounding landscape filled 
with the joyous sunshine of summer. So the proud knight's 
heart is still inaccessible to true charity and warm human 
sympathy. So aristocracy in its power and pride stands 
aloof from democracy with its humility and aspiration for 
human brotherhood. This stanza is especially figurative. 
The poet is unfolding the main theme, the underlying moral 
purpose, of the whole poem, but it is still kept in vague, 
dreamy symbolism. 

116. North Countree: The north of England, the home 
of the border ballads. This form of the word " countree," 
with accent on the last syllable, is common in the old ballads. 
Here it gives a flavor of antiquity in keeping with the story. 

122. Pavilions tall: The trees, as in line 125, the broad 
green tents. Note how the military figure, beginning with 



NOTES 143 

" outposts," in line 115, is continued and developed through- 
out the stanza, and reverted to in the word " siege " in the 
next stanza. 

130. Maiden knight: A young, untried, unpracticed 
knight. The expression occurs in Tennyson's Sir Galahad. 
So " maiden mail " below. 

137. As a locust-leaf : The small delicate leaflets of the com- 
pound locust-leaf seem always in a " lightsome " movement. 

138. The original edition has " unscarred mail." 
138-139. Compare the last lines of Tennyson's Sir Gal- 

" By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
All-armed I ride, whate'er betide, 
Until I find the Holy Grail." 

147. Made morn: Let in the morning, or came into the 
full morning light as the huge gate opened. 

148. Leper: Why did the poet make the crouching beg- 
gar a leper? 

152. For " gan shrink " the original has " did shrink." 
155. Bent of stature: Criticise this phrase. 
158. So he tossed ... in scorn: This is the turning- 
point of the moral movement of the story. Sir Launfal at 
the very beginning makes his fatal mistake; his noble spirit 
and lofty purposes break down with the first test. He re- 
fuses to see a brother in the loathsome leper; the light and 
warmth of human brotherhood had not yet entered his soul, 
just as the summer sunshine had not entered the frowning 
castle. The regeneration of his soul must be worked out 
through wandering and suffering. Compare the similar 
plot of the Ancient Mariner. 

163. No true alms: The alms must also be in the heart. 

164. Originally " He gives nothing but worthless gold." 
166. Slender mite: An allusion to the widow's "two 

mites." (Luke xxi, 1-4.) 

168. The all-sustaining Beauty: The all-pervading spirit 
of God that unites all things in one sympathetic whole. This 



144 NOTES 

divinity in humanity is its highest beauty. In The Oak 
Lowell says: 

" Lord ! all thy works are lessons ; each contains 
Some emblem of man's all-containing soul." 

172. A god goes with it: The god-like quality of real 
charity, of heart to heart sympathy. In a letter written a 
little after the composition of this poem Lowell speaks of 
love and freedom as being " the sides which Beauty pre- 
sented to him then." 

172. Store: Plenty, abundance. 

175. Summers: What is gained by the use of this word 
instead of winters? 

176. Wold: A high, open and barren field that catches 
the full sweep of the wind. The " wolds " of north England 
are like the " downs " of the south. 

181. The little brook: In a letter written in December, 
1848, Lowell says: " Last night I walked to Watertown over 
the snow with the new moon before me and a sky exactly 
like that in Page's evening landscape. Orion was rising 
behind me, and, as I stood on the hill just before you enter 
the village, the stillness of the fields around me was delicious, 
broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which runs too 
swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in 
Sir Launfal was drawn from it." See the poem Beaver 
Brook (originally called The Mill), and the winter picture in 
An Indian-Summer Reverie, lines 148-196. 

184. Groined: Groined arches are formed by the inter- 
section of two arches crossing at any angle, forming a ribbed 
vault; a characteristic feature of Gothic architecture. 

190. Forest-crypt: The crypt of a church is the basement, 
filled with arched pillars that sustain the building. The 
cavern of the brook, as the poet will have us imagine it, is 
like this subterranean crypt, where the pillars are like trees 
and the groined arches like interlacing branches, decorated 
with frost leaves. The poet seems to have had in mind 



NOTES 145 

throughout the description the interior of the Gothic cathe- 
drals, as shown by the many suggestive terms used, 
" groined," " crypt," " aisles/' " fretwork," and " carvings." 
193. Fretwork: The ornamental work carved in intri- 
cate patterns, in oak or stone, on the ceilings of old halls 
and churches. 

195. Sharp relief: When a figure stands out prominently 
from the marble or other material from which it is cut, it 
is said to be in " high relief," in distinction from " low re- 
lief," has relief. 

196. Arabesques: Complicated patterns of interwoven 
foliage, flowers and fruits, derived from Arabian art. Lowell 
had undoubtedly studied many times the frost designs on 
the window panes. 

201. That crystalled the beams, etc.: That caught the 
beams of moon and sun as in a crystal. For " that " the 
original edition has " which." 

204. Winter-palace of ice: An allusion, apparently, to 
the ice-palace built by the Empress of Russia, Catherine II, 
" most magnificent and mighty freak. The wonder of the 
North," Cowper called it. Compare LowelPs description of 
the frost work with Cowper 's similar description in The 
Task, in the beginning of Book V. 

205-210. 'Twas as if every image, etc.: Note the exqui- 
site fancy in these lines. The elves have preserved in the 
ice the pictures of summer foliage and clouds that were 
mirrored in the water as models for another summer. 

211. The hall: In the old castles the hall was always the 
large banqueting room, originally the common living room. 
Here all large festivities would take place. 

213. Corbel: A bracket-like support projecting from a 
wall from which an arch springs or on which a beam rests. 
The poet has in mind an ancient hall in which the ceiling 
is the exposed woodwork of the roof. 

214. This line at first read: " With the lightsome," etc. 
Why did Lowell's refining taste strike out " the " ? 



146 NOTES 

216. Yule-log: The great log, sometimes the root of a tree, 
burned in the huge fireplace on Christmas eve, with special 
ceremonies and merrymakings. It was lighted with a brand 
preserved from the last year's log, and connected with its 
burning were many quaint superstitions and customs. The 
celebration is a survival through our Scandinavian ancestors 
of the winter festival in honor of the god Thor. Herrick 
describes it trippingly in one of his songs: 

" Come, bring with a noise, 

My merrie, merrie boys, 
The Christmas log to the firing; - 

While my good dame, she 

Bids ye all be free, 
And drink to your heart's desiring/' 

219. Like a locust, etc.: Only one who has heard both 
sounds frequently can appreciate the close truth of this 
simile. The metaphors and similes in this stanza are de- 
serving of special study. 

226. Harp: Prof. William Vaughn Moody questions 
whether " the use of Sir Launfal's hair as a ' harp ' for the 
wind to play a Christmas carol on " is not " a bit grotesque." 
Does the picture of Sir Launfal in these two stanzas belong 
in the Prelude or in the story in Part Second? 

230. Carol of its own: Contrasted with the carols that 
are being sung inside the castle. 
r 231. Burden: The burden or refrain is the part repeated 
at the end of each stanza of a ballad or song, expressing the 
main theme or sentiment. Still is in the sense of always, 
ever. 

233. Seneschal: An officer of the castle who had charge 
of feasts and ceremonies, like the modern Lord Chamberlain 
of the King's palace. Note the effect of the striking figure 
in this line. 

237. Window-slits: Narrow perpendicular openings in 



NOTES 147 

the wall, serving both as windows and as loopholes from 
which to fire at an enemy. 

238. Build out its piers: The beams of light are like the 
piers or jetties that extend out from shore into the water 
to protect ships. Such piers are also built out to protect 
the shore from the violent wash of the ocean. The poet may 
possibly, however, have had in mind the piers of a bridge 
that support the arches and stand against the sweep of the 
stream. 

243. In this line instead of " the weaver Winter " the 
original has " the frost's swift shuttles." Was the change 
an improvement? 

244. A single crow: Note the effect of introducing this 
lone crow into the bleak landscape. 

250. It must not be forgotten that this old Sir Launfal 
is only in the dream of the real Sir Launfal, who is still lying 
on the rushes within his own castle. As the poor had often 
been turned away with cold, heartless selfishness, so he is 
now turned away from his own " hard gate." 

251. Sate: The use of this archaic form adds to the 
antique flavor of the poem. So with the use of the word 
" tree " for cross, in line 281 below. Lowell was passionately 
fond of the old poets and the quaint language of the early 
centuries of English literature, and loved to introduce into 
his own poetry words and phrases from these sources. Of 
this habit he says: 

" If some small savor creep into my rhyme 
Of the old poets, if some words I use, 
Neglected long, which have the lusty thews 
Of that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time, 
Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime 
Have given our tongue its starry eminence, — 
It is not pride, God knows, but reverence 
Which hath grown in me since my childhood's prime." 

254. Recked: Cared for. 



148 NOTES 

255. Surcoat: A long flowing garment worn over the 
armor, on which was " emblazoned " the coat of arms. If 
the knight were a crusader, a red cross was embroidered 
thus on the surcoat. 

256.. The sign: The sign of the cross, the symbol of humil- 
ity and love. This is the first real intimation, the keynote, of 
the transformation that has taken place in Sir Launfal's 
soul. 

259. Idle mail: Useless, ineffectual protection. This 
figure carries us back to the " gilded mail," line 131, in which 
Sir Launfal " flashed forth " at the beginning of his quest. 
The poem is full of these minor antitheses, which should be 
traced by the student. 

264-272. He sees, etc.: This description is not only 
beautiful in itself, but it serves an important purpose in the 
plan of the poem. It is a kind of condensation or symbolic 
expression of Sir Launfal 's many years of wandering in orien- 
tal lands. The hint or brief outline is given, which must 
be expanded by the imagination of the reader. Otherwise 
the story would be inconsistent and incomplete. Notice 
how deftly the picture is introduced. 

272. Signal of palms: A group of palm trees seen afar 
off over the desert is a welcome signal of an oasis with water 
for the relief of the suffering traveler. Some critics have 
objected that so small a spring could not have " waved " 
so large a signal! 

273. Notice the abruptness with which the leper is here 
introduced, just as before at the beginning of the story. The 
vision of " a sunnier clime " is quickly swept away. The 
shock of surprise now has a very different effect upon Sir 
Launfal. 

275. This line at first read: " But Sir Launfal sees naught 
save the grewsome thing." 

278. White: "And, behold, Miriam became leprous, 
white as snow." (Numbers xii, 10.) 

279. Desolate horror: The adjective suggests the out- 






t 



NOTES 149 

cast, isolated condition of lepers. They were permitted no 
contact with other people. The ten lepers who met Jesus 
in Samaria " stood afar off and lifted up their voices.' ' 

281. On the tree: On the cross. "Whom they slew 
and hanged on a tree, Him God raised up the third day." 
(Acts x, 39.) This use of the word is common in early lit- 
erature, especially in the ballads. 

285. See John xx, 25-27. 

287. Through him: The leper. Note that the address 
is changed in these two lines. Compare Matthew xxv, 34-40. 
This gift to the leper differs how from the gift in Part First? 

291. Leprosie: The antiquated spelling is used for the 
perfect rhyme and to secure the antique flavor. 

292. Girt: The original word here was " caged." 

294. Ashes and dust: Explain the metaphor. Compare 
with "sackcloth and ashes." See Esther iv, 3; Jonah iii, 
6; Job ii, 8. 

300, 301. The figurative character of the lines is empha- 
sized by the word " soul " at the end. The miracle of Cana 
seems to have been in the poet's mind. 

304, 305. The leper is transfigured and Christ himself 
appears in the vision of the sleeping Sir Launfal. 

307. The Beautiful Gate: " The gate of the temple which 
is called Beautifu 1 ," where Peter healed the lame man. 
(Acts iii, 2.) 

308. Himself the Gate : See John x, 7, 9 : "I am the door." 
310. Temple of God : " Know ye not that ye are the temple 

of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? " 
(/ Corinthians iii, 16, 17; vi, 19.) 

312. This line at first began with " which." 

313. Shaggy: Is this term applicable to Sir Launfal 's 
present condition, or is the whole simile carried a little be- 
yond the point of true likeness ? 

314. Softer: Lowell originally wrote "calmer" here. 
The change increased the effect of the alliteration. Was it 
otherwise an improvement? 



150 NOTES 

315. Lo, it is I: John vi, 20. 

316. Without avail: Was Sir Launfal's long quest en- 
tirely without avail ? Compare the last lines of Tennyson's 
Holy Grail, where Arthur complains that his knights who 
went upon the Holy Quest have followed " wandering fires, 
lost in the quagmire/' and " leaving human wrongs to right 
themselves." 

320, 321. Matthew xxvi, 26-28; Mark xiv, 22-24. 

322. Holy Supper: The Last Supper of Christ and his 

disciples, upon which is instituted the communion service of 

the churches. The spirit of the Holy Supper, the communion 

of true brotherhood, is realized when the Christlike spirit 

triumphs in the man. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 

one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto 

me." {Matthew xxv, 40.) 

326. The original has " bestows " for " gives." 

328. Swound: The antiquated form of swoon, 

332, 333. Interpret the lines. Did the poet have in 

mind the spiritual armor described in Ephesians vi, 11-17? 

336. Hangbird: The oriole, so called from its hanging 

nest; one of Lowell's most beloved " garden acquaintances " 

at Elm wood. In a letter he says: " They build a pendulous 

nest, and so flash in the sun that our literal rustics call them 

fire bang-birds." See the description in Under the Willows 

beginning: . 

My oriole, my glance or summer tire. 

See also the charming prose description in My Garden Ac- 
quaintance. 

338. Summer's long siege at last is o'er: The return to 
this figure rounds out the story and serves to give unity to 
the plan of the poem. The siege is successful, summer has 
conquered and entered the castle, warming and lighting its 
cold, cheerless interior. 

342, 343. Is Lowell expressing here his own convictions 
about ideal democracy? 






NOTES 151 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 

Apollo, the god of music, having given offense to Zeus, 
was condemned to serve for the space of one year as a shep- 
herd under Admetus, King of Thessaly. This is one of the 
most charming of the myths of Apollo, and has been often 
used by the poets. Remarking upon this poem, and others 
of its period, Scudder says that it shows " how persistently 
in Lowell's mind was present this aspect of the poet which 
makes him a seer," a recognition of an " all-embracing, 
all-penetrating power which through the poet transmutes 
nature into something finer and more eternal, and gives him 
a vantage ground from which to perceive more truly the 
realities of life." Compare with this poem An Incident in a 
Railroad Car. 

5. Lyre: According to mythology, Apollo's lyre was a 
tortoise-shell strung with seven strings. 

8. Fagots for a witch: The introduction of this witch 
element into a Greek legend rather mars the consistency of 
the poem. Lowell finally substituted for the stanza the 
following: 

" Upon an empty tortoise-shell 

He stretched some chords, and drew 
Music that made men's bosoms swell 

Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew." 

HEBE 

Lowell suggests in this dainty symbolical lyric his concep- 
tion of the poet's inspiration. Hebe was cup-bearer to the 
gods of Olympus, in Greek mythology, and poured for them 
their nectar. She was also the goddess of eternal youth. By 
an extension of the symbolism she becomes goddess of the 
eternal joyousness of the poetic gift. The " influence fleet " 
is the divine afflatus that fills the creative mind of the poet. 



152 NOTES 

But Pegasus cannot be made to work in harness at will. 
True inspiration comes only in choice moments. Coy Hebe 
cannot be wooed violently. Elsewhere he says of the muse: 

" Harass her not; thy heat and stir 
But greater coyness breed in her." 

" Follow thy life," he says, " be true to thy best self, then 
Hebe will bring her choicest ambrosia." That is — 

" Make thyself rich, and then the Muse 
Shall court thy precious interviews, 
Shall take thy head upon her knee, 
And such enchantment lilt to thee, 
That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow 
From farthest stars to grass-blades low." 

TO THE DANDELION 

Four stanzas were added to this poem after its first ap- 
pearance, the sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth, but in the 
finally revised edition these were cut out, very likely because 
Lowell regarded them as too didactic. Indeed the poem 
is complete and more artistic without them. 

" Of Lowell's earlier pieces," says Stedman, " the one 
which shows the finest sense of the poetry of nature is that ad- 
dressed To the Dandelion. The opening phrase ranks with 
the selectest of Wordsworth and Keats, to whom imagina- 
tive diction came intuitively, and both thought and lan- 
guage are felicitous throughout. This poem contains many 
of its author's peculiar beauties and none of his faults; it 
was the outcome of the mood that can summon a rare spirit 
of art to express the gladdest thought and most elusive 
feeling." 

6. Eldorado : The land of gold, supposed to be somewhere 
in South America, which the European adventurers, espe- 
cially the Spaniards, were constantly seeking in the sixteenth 
century. 



NOTES 153 

26. Sybaris: An ancient Greek colony in southern Italy 
whose inhabitants were devoted to luxury and pleasure. 
52-54. Compare Sir Launfal. 

MY LOVE 

Lowell's love for Maria White is beautifully enshrined in 
this little poem. He wrote it at about the time of their 
engagement. While it is thus personal in its origin, it is 
universal in its expression of ideal womanhood, and so has 
a permanent interest and appeal. In its strong simplicity 
and crystal purity of style, it is a little masterpiece. Though 
filled with the passion of his new and beautiful love, its 
movement is as calm and artistically restrained as that of 
one of Wordsworth's best lyrics. 

THE CHANGELING 

This is one of the tender little poems that refer to the 
death of the poet's daughter Blanche, which occurred in 
March, 1847. The First Snow-fall and She Came and Went 
embody the same personal grief. When sending the former 
to his friend Sydney H. Gay for publication, he wrote: " May 
you never have the key which shall unlock the whole mean- 
ing of the poem to you." Underwood, in his Biographical 
Sketch says that " friends of the poet, who were admitted to 
the study in the upper chamber, remember the pairs of baby 
shoes that hung over a picture-frame." The volume in 
which this poem first appeared contained this dedication — 
" To the ever fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche 
this volume is reverently dedicated." 

A changeling, according to folk-lore and fairy tale, is a 
fairy child that the fairies substitute for a human child that 
they have stolen. The changeling was generally sickly, 
shrivelled and in every way repulsive. Here the poet re- 
verses the superstition, substituting the angels for the mis- 



154 NOTES 

chievous fairies, who bring an angel child in place of the lost 
one. Whittier has a poem on the same theme, The Change- 
ling. 

29. Zingari: The Gypsies — suggested by " wandering 
angels " above — who wander about the earth, and also 
sometimes steal children, according to popular belief. 

52. Bliss it: A rather violent use of the word, not recog- 
nized by the dictionaries, but nevertheless felicitous. 

AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 

Lowell's love of Elmwood and its surroundings finds 
expression everywhere in his writings, both prose and 
verse, but nowhere in a more direct, personal manner than 
in this poem. He was not yet thirty when the poem was 
written, and Cambridge could still be called a "village," but 
the familiar scenes already had their retrospective charms, 
which increased with the passing years. Later in life he 
again celebrated his affection for this home environment in 
Under the Willows. 

" There are poetic lines and phrases in the poem," says 
Scudder, " and more than all the veil of the season hangs 
tremulously over the whole, so that one is gently stirred by 
the poetic feeling of the rambling verses; yet, after all, the 
most enduring impression is of the young man himself in 
that still hour of his life, when he was conscious, not so much 
of a reform to which he must put his hand, as of the love of 
beauty, and of the vague melancholy which mingles with 
beauty in the soul of a susceptible poet. The river winding 
through the marshes, the distant sound of the ploughman, 
the near chatter of the chipmunk, the individual trees, each 
living its own life, the march of the seasons flinging lights 
and shadows over the broad scene, the pictures of human 
life associated with his own experience, the hurried survey 
of his village years — all these pictures float before his vision ; 
and then, with an abruptness which is like the choking of 



NOTES 155 

the singer's voice with tears, there wells up the thought of 
the little life which held as in one precious drop the love 
and faith of his heart." 

I. Visionary tints: The term Indian summer is given to 
almost any autumnal period of exceptionally quiet, dry and 
hazy weather. In America these characteristic features of 
late fall were especially associated with the middle West, at 
a time when the Indians occupied that region. 

5. Hebe: Hebe was cup-bearer to the gods at their 
feasts on Olympus. Like Hebe, Autumn fills the sloping 
fields, rimmed round with distant hills, with her own deli- 
cious atmosphere of dreamy and poetic influence. 

II. My own projected spirit: It seems to the poet that 
his own spirit goes out to the world, steeping it in reverie 
like his own, rather than receiving the influence from na- 
ture's mood. 

25. Gleaning Ruth: For the story of Ruth's gleaning 
in the fields of Boaz, see the book of Ruth, ii. 

38. Chipmunk: Lowell at first had " squirrel " here, 
which would be inconsistent with the " underground fast- 
ness." And yet, are chipmunks seen up in walnut trees ? 

40. This line originally read, " with a chipping bound." 
Cheeping is chirping, or giving the peculiar cluck that sounds 
like " cheep," or " chip." 

45. Faint as smoke, etc.: The farmer burns the stubble 
and other refuse of the season before his " fall plowing." 

46. The single crow, etc.: Note the full significance of 
this detail of the picture. Compare Bryant's Death of the 
Flowers : 

" And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the 
gloomy day." 

50. Compare with this stanza the pretty little poem, 
The Birch Tree. 
68. Lavish of their long-hid gold: The chestnut leaves, 



156 MOTES 

it will be remembered, turn to a bright golden yellow in 
autumn. These descriptions of autumn foliage are all as 
true as beautiful. 

73. Maple-swamps: We generally speak of the swamp- 
maple, which grows in low ground, and has particularly bril- 
liant foliage in autumn. 

82. Tangled blackberry: This is the creeping blackberry, 
of course, which every one remembers whose feet have 
been caught in its prickly tangles. 

91. Martyr oak: The oak is surrounded with the blazing 
foliage of the ivy, like a burning martyr. 

99. Dear marshes: The Charles River near Elmwood 
winds through broad salt marshes, the characteristic fea- 
tures of which Lowell describes with minute and loving 
fidelity 

127. Bobolink: If Lowell had a favorite bird, it was the 
bobolink, although the oriole was a close competitor for his 
praises. In one of his letters he says: " I think the bobolink 
the best singer in the world, even undervaluing the lark and 
the nightingale in the comparison." And in another he 
writes: " That liquid tinkle of theirs is the true fountain 
of youth if one can only drink it with the right ears, and I 
always date the New Year from the day of my first draught. 
Messer Roberto di Lincoln, with his summer alb over his 
shoulders, is the true chorister for the bridals of earth and 
sky. There is no bird that seems to me so thoroughly happy 
as he, so void of all arricre pensee about getting a liveli- 
hood. The robin sings matins and vespers somewhat con- 
scientiously, it seems to me — makes a business of it and 
pipes as it were by the yard — but Bob squanders song like 
a poet." 

Compare the description in Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line: 



'Nuff said, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; 
Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, 



i 



NOTES 157 

Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, 

Or, givm' way to 't in a mock despair, 

Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air." 

See also the opening lines of Under the Willows for another 
description full of the ecstasy of both bird and poet. The 
two passages woven together appear in the essay Cambridge 
Thirty Years Ago, as a quotation. An early poem on The 
Bobolink, delightful and widely popular, was omitted from 
later editions of his poems by Lowell, perhaps because to his 
maturer taste the theme was too much moralized in his early 
manner. " Shelley and Wordsworth/ ' says Mr. Brownell, 
" have not more worthily immortalized the skylark than 
Lowell has the bobolink, its New England congener." 

134. Another change: The description now returns to 
the marshes. 

147. Simond's hill: In the essay Cambridge Thirty Years 
Ago Lowell describes the village as seen from the top of this 
hill. 

159-161. An allusion to the Mexican War, against which 
Lowell was directing the satire of the Biglow Papers. 

174-182. Compare the winter pictures in Whittier's 
Snowbound. 

177. Formal candles: Candles lighted for some form or 
ceremony, as in a religious service. 

192. Stonehenge: Stonehenge on Salisbury plain in 
the south of England is famous for its huge blocks of stone 
now lying in confusion, supposed to be the remains of an 
ancient Druid temple. 

207. Sanding: The continuance of the metaphor in 
" higher waves " are " whelming." With high waves the 
sand is brought in upon the land, encroaching upon its 
limits. 

209. Muses' factories: The buildings of Harvard College. 

218. House-bespotted swell: Lowell notes with some 
resentment the change from nature's simple beauties to 



158 NOTES 

the pretentiousness of wealth shown in incongruous build- 
ings. 

220. Cits: Contracted from citizens. During the French 
Revolution, when all titles were abolished, the term citizen 
was applied to every one, to denote democratic simplicity 
and equality. 

223. Gentle Allston: Washington Allston, the celebrated 
painter, whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in 
the charming essay Cambridge Thirty Years Ago. 

225. Virgilium vidi tantum: I barely saw Virgil — caught 
a glimpse of him — a phrase applied to any passing glimpse 
of greatness. 

227. Undine-like: Undine, a graceful water nymph, is 
the heroine of the charming little romantic story by De la 
Motte Fouqu6. 

234. The village blacksmith: See Longfellow's famous 
poem, The Village Blacksmith. The chestnut was cut down 
in 1876. An arm-chair made from its wood still stands in 
the Longfellow house, a gift to Longfellow from the Cam- 
bridge school children. 

254. Six old willows: These much-loved trees afforded 
Lowell a subject for a later poem Under the Willoivs, in which 
he describes particularly one ancient willow that had been 
spared, he " knows not by what grace/' by the ruthless 
" New World subduers " — 

" One of six, a willow Pleiades, 
The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink 
Where the steep upland dips into the marsh." 

In a letter written twenty years after the Reverie to J. T. 
Fields, Lowell says: " My heart was almost broken yester- 
day by seeing nailed to my willow a board with these words 
on it, ' These trees for sale.' The wretch is going to peddle 
them for firewood! If I had the money, I would buy the 
piece of ground they stand on to save them — the dear friends 
of a lifetime." 






NOTES 159 

255. Paul Potter: One of the most famous of the Dutch 
painters of the seventeenth century, notable for the strong 
realism of his work. 

264. Collegisse juvat: The full sentence, in the first ode 
of Horace, reads, " Curriculo pulverem Olympicum collegisse 
juvat." (It is a pleasure to have collected the dust of Olym- 
pus on one's chariot wheels.) The allusion is to the Olympic 
games, the most celebrated festival of Greece. Lowell 
puns upon the word collegisse with his own coinage, which 
may have the double meaning of going to college and col- 
lecting. 

272. Blinding anguish: An allusion to the death of his 
little daughter Blanche. See The Changeling, The First 
Snow-fall, and She Came and Went. 

THE OAK 

11. Uncinctured front: The forehead no longer encircled 
with a crown. 

13-16. There is a little confusion in the figures here, the 
cathedral part of the picture being a little far fetched. 

40. Mad Pucks: Puck is the frolicsome, mischief-making 
spirit of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night' 's Dream. 

45. Dodona grove: The grove of oaks at Dodona was the 
seat of a famous Greek oracle, whose responses were whis- 
pered through the murmuring foliage of the trees. 

BEAVER BROOK 

Beaver Brook at Waverley was a favorite resort of Lowell's 
and it is often mentioned in his writings. In summer and 
winter it was the frequent goal of his walks. The poem was 
at first called The Mill. It was first published in the Anti- 
Slavery Standard, and to the editor, Sidney H. Gay, Lowell 
wrote: — " Don't you like the poem I sent you last week? 
I was inclined to think pretty well of it, but I have not seen 



L60 NOTES 

it in print yet. The little mill stands in a valley between 
one of the spurs of Wellington Hill and the main summit, 
just on the edge of Waltham. It is surely one of the love- 
liest spots in the world. It is one of my lions, and if you 
will make me a visit this spring, I will take you up to hear it 
roar, and I will show you ' the oaks ' — the largest, I fancy, 
left in the country." 

21. Undine: In mythology and romance, Undine is a 
water-spirit who is endowed with a soul by her marriage with 
a mortal. The race is the watercourse conducted from the 
dam in an open trough or " penstock " to the wheel. 

45. In that new childhood of the Earth: This poem was 
written a few weeks after the Vision of Sir Launfal was pub- 
lished, and it therefore naturally partakes of its idealism, 

THE PRESENT CRISIS 

This poem was written in 1844. The discussion over the 
annexation of Texas was absorbing public attention. The 
anti-slavery party opposed annexation, believing that it 
would strengthen the slave-holding interests, and for the 
same reason the South was urging the scheme. Lowell 
wrote several very strong anti-slavery poems at this time, 
To W. L. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, On the Death of C. T. 
Torrey, and others, w T hich attracted attention to him as a 
new and powerful ally of the reform party. " These poems," 
says George William Curtis, " especially that on The Pres- 
ent Crisis, have a Tyrtaean resonance, a stately rhetorical 
rhythm, that make their dignity of thought, their intense 
feeling, and picturesque imagery, superbly effective in recita- 
tion. They sang themselves on every anti-slavery platform." 

While the poem was inspired by the political struggle of 
the time, which Lowell regarded as a crisis in the history of 
our national honor and progress, its chief strength is due to 
the fact that its lofty sentiment is universal in its appeal, 
and not applicable merely to temporal and local conditions. 



NOTES 161 

17. Round the earth's electric circle, etc. : This prophetic 
figure was doubtless suggested by the first telegraph line, 
which Samuel F. B. Morse had just erected between Baltimore 
and Washington. 

37. The Word: "In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
(John i, 1.) 

44. Delphic cave: The oracle at Delphi was the most 
famous and authoritative among the Greeks. The priestess 
who voiced the answers of the god was seated in a natural 
fissure in the rocks. 

46. Cyclops: The Cyclopes were brutish giants with one 
eye who lived in caverns and fed on human flesh, if the oppor- 
tunity offered. Lowell is recalling in these lines the adven- 
ture of Ulysses with the Cyclops, in the ninth book of 
Homer's Odyssey. 

64. Credo: Latin, I believe: the first word in the Latin 
version of the Apostles' Creed, hence used for creed. 

THE COURT IN 9 

This poem first appeared as "a short fragment of a 
pastoral/' in the introduction to the First Series of the 
Biglow Papers. It is said to have been composed merely to 
fill a blank page, but its popularity was so great that 
Lowell expanded it to twice its original length, and finally 
printed it as a kind of introduction to the Second Series of 
the Biglow Papers. It first appeared, however, in its 
expanded form in a charitable publication, Autograph Leaves 
of Our Country's Authors, reproduced in facsimile from the 
original manuscript. 

" This bucolic idyl," says Stedman, " is without a counter- 
part; no richer juice can be pressed from the wild grape of 
the Yankee soil." Greenslet thinks that this poem is 
" perhaps the most nearly perfect of his poems." 

17. Crooknecks: Crookneck squashes. 



162 NOTES 

19. Ole queen's-arm: The old musket brought from the 
Concord fight in 1775. 

32. To draw a straight furrow when plowing is regarded 
as evidence of a skilful farmer. 

36. All is: The truth is, " all there is about it." 

37. Long o' her: Along of her, on account of her. 

40. South slope: The slope of a hill facing south catches 
the spring sunshine. 

43. Ole Hunderd: Old Hundred is one of the most 
familiar of the old hymn tunes. 

58. Somewhat doubtful as to the sequel. 

94. Bay o' Fundy: The Bay of Fundy is remarkable 
for its high and violent tides, owing to the peculiar confor- 
mation of its banks. 

96. Was cried: The "bans" were cried, the announce- 
ment of the engagement in the church, according to the 
custom of that day. 

THE COMMEMORATION ODE 

The poem was dedicated " To the ever sweet and shining 
memory of the ninety-three sons of Harvard College who 
have died for their country in the war of nationality." The 
text of the poem is here given as Lowell first published it 
in 1865. He afterward made a few verbal changes, and 
added one new strophe after the eighth. There is a special 
interest in studying the ode in the form in which it came 
rushing from the poet's brain. 

1-14. The deeds of the poet are weak and trivial com- 
pared with the deeds of heroes. They live their high ideals 
and die for them. Yet the gentle words of the poet may 
sometimes save unusual lives from that oblivion to which 
all common lives are destined. 

5. Robin's-leaf : An allusion to the ballad of the Babes 
in the Wood. 

9. Squadron-strophes: The term strophe originally was 



NOTES 163 

applied to a metrical form that was repeated in a certain 
established way, like the strophe and antistrophe of the Greek 
ode, as sung by a divided chorus; it is now applied to any 
stanza form. The poem of heroism is a " battle-ode," whose 
successive stanzas are marching squadrons, whose verses are 
lines of blazing guns, and whose melody is the strenuous 
music of " trump and drum." 

13. Lethe's dreamless ooze: Lethe is the river of oblivion 
in Hades; its slimy depths of forgetfulness are not even 
disturbed by dreams. 

14. Unventurous throng: The vast majority of common- 
place beings who neither achieve nor attempt deeds of " high 
emprise." 

16. Wisest Scholars: Many students who had returned 
from the war were in the audience, welcomed back by their 
revered mother, their Alma Mater. 

20. Peddling: Engaging in small, trifling interests. Lowell's 
attitude toward science is that of Wordsworth, when he 
speaks of the dry-souled scientist as one who is all eyes and 
no heart, " One that would peep and botanize Upon his 
mother's grave." 

21. The pseudo-science of astrology, seeking to tell com- 
monplace fortunes by the stars. 

25-26. Clear fame: Compare Milton's Lycidas: 

" Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
To scorn delights and live laborious days." 

32. Half -virtues : Is Lowell disparaging the virtues of 
peace and home in comparison with the heroic virtues of 
war? Or are these " half-virtues " contrasted with the 
loftier virtue, the devotion to Truth? 

34. That stern device: The seal of Harvard College, 
chosen by its early founders, bears the device of a shield 
with the word Ve-ri-tas (truth) upon three open books. 

46. Sad faith: Deep, serious f^ith,' or there may be a 



164 NOTES 

slight touch of irony in the word, with a glance at the gloomy 
faith of early puritanism and its " lifeless creed " (1. 62)., 
62. Lifeless creed: Compare Tennyson's: 

" Ancient form 
Thro* which the spirit breathes no more." 

73. The tide of the ocean in its flow and ebb is tinder 
the influence of the moon. To get the sense of the metaphor, 
u fickle " must be read with " Fortune " — unless, perchance, 
we like Juliet regard the moon as the " inconstant moon. 

81. To protect one's self everyone connives against 
everyone else. Compare Sir Launfal, 1. 11. Instead of 
climbing Sinais we " cringe and plot." 

82. Compare Sir Launfal, 1. 26. The whole passage, 
11. 76-87, is a distant echo of the second and third stanzas 
of Sir Launfal. 

83-85. Puppets: The puppets are the pasteboard actors 
in the Punch and Judy show, operated by unseen wires. 
84. An echo of Macbeth , V, 5: 

" Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more." 

97. Elder than the Day: Elder than the first Day. " And 
God called the light Day," etc. (Genesis i, 5.) We may 
have light from the divine fountains. 

110-114. In shaping this elaborate battle metaphor, one 
can easily believe the poet to have had in mind some fierce 
mountain struggle during the war, such as the battle of 
Lookout Mountain. 

111. Creeds: Here used in the broad sense of convictions, 
principles, beliefs. 

115-118. The construction is faulty in these lines. The 
two last clauses should be co-ordinated. The substance of 
the meaning is: Peace has her wreath, while the cannon are 
6ilent and while the sword slumbers. Lowell's attention 






NOTES 165 

was called to this defective passage by T. W. Higginson, and 
he replied: " Your criticism is perfectly just, and I am much 
obliged to you for it — though I might defend myself, I 
believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the 
Greek choruses. But on the whole, when I have my choice, 
I prefer to make sense." He then suggested an emendation, 
which somehow failed to get into the published poem: 

" Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
Redden the cannon's lips, and while the sword. f 

120. BaaPs stone obscene: Human sacrifices were offered 
on the altars of Baal. (Jeremiah xix, 5.) 

147-205. This strophe was not in the ode as delivered, 
but was written immediately after the occasion, and included 
in the published poem. "It is so completely imbedded in 
the structure of the ode," says Scudder, " that it is difficult 
to think of it as an afterthought. It is easy to perceive that 
while the glow of composition and of recitation was still 
upon him, Lowell suddenly conceived this splendid illustra- 
tion, and indeed climax of the utterance, of the Ideal which 
is so impressive in the fifth stanza . . . Into these threescore 
lines Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln, which may 
justly be said to be to-day the accepted idea which Americans 
hold of their great President. It was the final expression 
of the judgment which had slowly been forming in Lowell's 
own mind." 

In a letter to Richard Watson Gilder, Lowell says: "The 
passage about Lincoln was not in the ode as originally re- 
cited, but added immediately after. More than eighteen 
months before, however, I had written about Lincoln in the 
North American Review — an article that pleased him. I 
did divine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin caste." 

It is a singular fact that the other great New England 
poets, Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, had almost nothing 
to say about Lincoln. 

150. Wept with the passion, etc.: An article in the Atlantic 



1C6 NOTES 

Monthly for June, 1865, began with this passage: " The funeral 
procession of the late President of the United States has 
massed through the land from Washington to his final resting- 
)lace in the heart of the prairies. Along the line of more 
than fifteen hundred miles his remains were borne, as it 
w T ere, through continued lines of the people; and the number 
of mourners and the sincerity and unanimity of grief was 
such as never before attended the obsequies of a human 
being; so that the terrible catastrophe of his end hardly 
struck more awe than the majestic sorrow of the people.'' 

170. Outward grace is dust: An allusion to Lincoln's 
aw T kward and rather unkempt outward appearance. 

173. Supple-tempered will: One of the most pronounced 
traits of Lincoln's character was his kindly, almost femininely 
gentle and sympathetic spirit. With this, however, was 
combined a determination of steel. 

175-178. Nothing of Europe here: There was nothing of 
Europe in him, or, if anything, it was of Europe in her early 
ages of freedom before there was any distinction of slave 
and master, groveling Russian Serf and noble Lord or Peer. 

180. One of Plutarch's men: The distinguished men of 
Greece and Rome whom Plutarch immortalized in his Lives 
are accepted as types of human greatness. 

182. Innative: Inborn, natural. 

187. He knew to bide his time: He knew how to bide his 
time, as in Milton's Lycidas, " He knew himself to sing." 
Recall illustrations of Lincoln's wonderful patience and faith. 

198. The first American: In a prose article, Lowell calls 
him " The American of Americans." Compare Tennyson's 
"The last great Englishman," in the Ode on the Death of the 
Duke of Wellington. Stanza IV of Tennyson's ode should 
be compared with this Lincoln stanza. 

202. Along whose course, etc.: Along the course leading to 
the " inspiring goal." The conjunction of the words " pole " 
and " axles" easily leads to a confusion of metaphor in the 
passage. The imagery is from the ancient chariot races. 



NOTES 167 

232. Paean: A psean, originally a hymn to Apollo, 
usually of thanksgiving, is a song of triumph, any loud and 
joyous song. 

236. Dear ones: Underwood says in his biography of 
Lowell: " In the privately printed edition of the poem the 
names of eight of the poet's kindred are given. The nearest 
in blood are the nephews, General Charles Russell Lowell, 
killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, at 
Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's 
Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. 
Shaw, who fell in the assault on Fort Wagner." 

As a special memorial of Colonel Shaw, Lowell wrote the 
poem, Memoriae Positum. With deep tenderness he refers 
to his nephews in " Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the 
Atlantic Monthly ": 

" Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? 

Did n't I love to see 'em growing 
Three likely lads ez wal could be, 

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? 
I set an' look into the blaze 

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', 
Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, 

An' half despise myself for rhymin\ 

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth 

On War's red techstone rang true metal, 
Who ventered life an' love an' youth 

For the gret prize o' death in battle? 
To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? " 

243. When Moses sent men to " spy out " the Promised 
Land, they reported a land that " floweth with milk and 
honey," and they " came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut 



168 NOTES 

down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and 
they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of 
the pomegranates and of the figs " ( Numbers xiii.) 
245. Compare the familiar line in Gray's Elegy: 

" The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

and Tennyson's line, in the Ode to the Duke of Wellington: 

" The path of duty was the way of glory." 

In a letter to T. W. Higginson, who was editing the Har~ 
vard Memorial Biographies, in which he was to print the ode, 
Lowell asked to have the following passage inserted at this 
point: 

" Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave, 

But through those constellations go 

That shed celestial influence on the brave. 

If life were but to draw this dusty breath 

That doth our wits enslave, 

And with the crowd to hurry to and fro, 

Seeking we know not what, and finding death, 

These did unwisely; but if living be, 

As some are born to know, 

The power to ennoble, and inspire 

In other souls our brave desire 

For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree, 

These truly live, our thought's essential fire, 

And to the saner," etc. 

Lowell's remark in The Cathedral, that " second thoughts 
are prose," might be fairly applied to this emendation. 
Fortunately, the passage was never inserted in the ode. 

255. Orient: The east, morning; hence youth, aspiration, 
hope. The figure is continued in 1. 271. 

262. Who now shall sneer? In a letter to Mr. J. B. 
Thayer, who had criticized this strophe, Lowell admits 
" that there is a certain narrowness in it as an expression of 



NOTES 169 

the popular feeling as well as my own. I confess I have 
never got over the feeling of wrath with which (just after 
the death of my nephew Willie) I read in an English paper 
that nothing was to be hoped of an army officered by tailors' 
apprentices and butcher boys." But Lowell asks his critic 
to observe that this strophe " leads naturally " to the next, 
and " that I there justify " the sentiment, 

265. Roundhead and Cavalier: In a general way, it is 
said that New England was settled by the Roundheads, or 
Puritans, of England, and the South by the Cavaliers or 
Royalists. 

272-273. Plantagenets : A line of English kings, founded 
by Henry II, called also the House of Anjou, from their 
French origin. The House of Hapsburg is the Imperial 
family of Austria. The Guelfs were a great political party in 
the Middle Ages, in Italy, representing the Pope in the bitter 
struggles with the Ghibellines, who represented the Emperor. 

323. With this passage read the last two stanzas of Mr. 
Hosea Biglow to the. Editor of the Atlantic Monthly, beginning: 

" Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed 
For honor lost and dear ones wasted, 
But proud, to meet a people proud, 

With eyes that tell of triumphs tasted! " 

328. Helm: The helmet, the part of ancient armor for 
protecting the head, used here as the symbol of war. 

343. Upon receiving the news that the war was ended, 
Lowell wrote to his friend, Charles Eliot Norton: " The news, 
my dear Charles, is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender 
exaltation. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry, and 
ended by holding my peace and feeling devoutly thankful. 
There is something magnificent in having a country to love." 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 

The following questions are taken from recent examination papers of 
the Examination Board established by the Association of Schools and 
Colleges in the Middle States and Maryland, and of the Regents of the 
State of New York. Generally only one question on The Vision of Sir 
Launfal is included in the examination paper for each year. 

Under what circumstances did the " vision " come to Sir 
Launfal? What was the vision? What was the effect upon 
him? 

What connection have the preludes in the Vision of Sir 
Launfal with the main divisions which they precede? What 
is their part in the poem as a whole? 

Contrast Sir Launfal's treatment of the leper at their first 
meeting with his treatment at their second. 

1. Describe a scene from the Vision of Sir Launfal. 

2. Describe the hall of the castle as Sir Launfal saw it on 
Christmas eve. 

" The soul partakes the season's youth . . • 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow?" 

Give the meaning of these lines, and explain what you 
think is Lowell's purpose in the preface from which they 
are taken. Give the substance of the corresponding preface 
to the other part of the poem, and account for the difference 
between the two. 

Describe the scene as it might have appeared to one stand- 
ing just outside the castle gate, as Sir Launfal emerged from 
his castle in his search for the Holy Grail. 

Compare the Ancient Mariner and the Vision of Sir Launfal 
with regard to the representation of a moral idea in each. 

171 



172 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 

Explain the meaning of Sir Launfal 's vision and show how 
it affected his conduct. 

Describe an ideal summer day as portrayed in the Vision 
of Sir Launfal. 

Quote at least ten lines. 

Discuss, with illustrations, Lowell's descriptions in the 
Vision of Sir Launfal, touching on two of the following points: 
■ — (a) beauty, (b) vividness, (c) attention to details. 

Write a description of winter as given in Part Second. 

Outline in tabular form the story of Sir Launfal's search 
for the Holy Grail; be careful to include in your outline the 
time, the place, the leading characters, and the leading 
events in their order. 



jHnrttTa Engltelj Sfcxtfi 



POEMS 

BY 

BRYANT, EMERSON, HOLMES 
AND WHITMAN 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES AND 
READING LISTS BY CHARLES ROBERT GASTON, 
Ph. D., INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, RICH- 
MOND HILL HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



COPYKIGHT, 1913 
BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) 5 

To a Waterfowl ............ 7 

Thanatopsis 8 

To the Fringed Gentian 12 

The Death of the Flowers 13 

A Forest Hymn 15 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ...... 21 

The Snow-Storm 23 

TheRhodora 24 

Concord Hymn 25 

Forbearance 26 

Thine Eyes Still Shined . 26 

Threnody 27 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) 39 

The Deacon's Masterpiece; or, 

The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay " .... 41 

Old Ironsides 46 

The Chambered Nautilus 47 

The Flower of Liberty 49 

The Last Leaf 51 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) 55 

Captain! My Captain! 57 

Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day 58 

When Lilacs last in the Door-Yard Bloomed . . 59 

List of Poems for Supplementary Reading . ... 75 

iii 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Probably no American poet, except Longfellow, has 
written more stanzas or lines that are on the tips of people's 
tongues than William Cullen Bryant. The last stanza of 
"To a Waterfowl," the couplet— 

"BoW-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink," — 

the long drooping line, "The melancholy days are come, 
the saddest of the year," and "The groves were God's 
first temples" are examples of Bryant's poetry that every- 
body knows. Many other favorite bits of his verse could 
be cited. 

Bryant seems like an elder American poet. The most 
familiar portrait shows him wearing a large gray beard, 
and we are wont to think of him as a benevolent old 
gentleman who had the best of taste, a friendly manner, 
and the spirit of poetry. Yet one of his best known poems, 
"Thanatopsis," was written during his eighteenth year, 
and most of his poetry that boys and girls like was written 
before he reached middle age. Perhaps one reason why 
people think of him as an elderly man is because he is 
really the pioneer American poet; American poetry may 
be said to have begun with the publication of "Thana- 
topsis." 

Like Emerson, William Cullen Bryant was a sympa- 
thetic lover of the outdoor world; his choicest poems are 
mostly transcripts of the impressions which birds and 
flowers and sky and air made upon him. He says himself 
that his "Ode to a Waterfowl" was founded on a real 
incident of his life. And so with his other nature poems. 

5 



G WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

They were not written from the library, as the phrase is, 
like Longfellow's descriptive outdoor poems, but rather 
represented Bryant's intimate outdoor communion with 
nature. One of his best-liked poems, "The Death of the 
Flowers," besides expressing the love of nature is also an 
exquisite expression of the poet's grief at the death of his 
young sister. 

The nearest approach to mirthful verse that Bryant 
ever made is "Robert of Lincoln," which is particularly 
delightful because of its imitative sound effects. 

There is a certain calm benignity and poise about 
Bryant's poetry that reminds one of his great English 
contemporary, Wordsworth. Bryant feels a moral lesson 
nearly always in his communings with nature, and has 
the habit of expressing his moral lesson like a preacher. 
At the close of Bryant's poems there is usually, as it were, 
a personal exhortation to better living in some particular 
respect. 

Yet though this tendency to moralize makes some 
readers hesitate to rank Bryant very high as a true poet, 
it is certain that he represents the best traditions of 
American poetry. Like most of the poets who have been 
widely popular in America, he stands for simple, clean 
living and high thinking. As editor and principal owner 
of a New York newspaper, The Evening Post, he was 
prominently and favorably before the public for nearly 
fifty years. He continues popular after the lapse of three- 
quarters of a century since the writing of some of his best 
poems. 



TO A WATERFOWL 

Whither, midst falling dew 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, dimly seen against the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean-side? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

7 



8 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

And soon that toil shall end; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart 
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long w T ay that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 



THANATOPSIS 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has the voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 9 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice — 

Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course; nor yet, in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix forever with the elements, 
To be a brother to the insensible rock 
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 



10 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between; 

The venerable woods — rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green; and, poured round 

all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful of the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there: 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 11 

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glides away, the sons of men, 
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
By those who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



12 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night, 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 

I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 
Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
May look at heaven as I depart. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 13 



THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the 

year, 
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows 

brown and sere. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn 

leaves lie dead; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's 

tread; 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the 

shrubs the jay, 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the 

gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that 
lately sprang and stood 

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister- 
hood? 

Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of 
flowers 

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good 
of ours, 



14 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold No- 
vember rain 

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones 
again. 

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long 

ago, 
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the 

summer glow; 
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the 

wood, 
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn 

beauty stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls 

the plague on men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from 

upland, glade, and glen. 
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still 

such days will come, 
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter 

home; 
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though 

all the trees are still, 
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the 

rill, 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 15 

The south wind searches for the flowers whose 

fragrance late he bore, 
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream 

no more. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty 

died, 
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my 

side. 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests 

cast the leaf, 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life 

so brief: 
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young 

friend of ours, 
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the 

flowers. 

A FOREST HYMN 

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man 

learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave 
And spread the roof above them — ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 



16 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Amid the cool and silence he knelt down 

And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 

And supplication. For his simple heart 

Might not resist the sacred influence 

Which, from the stilly twilight of the place 

And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 

Mingled their mossy boughs and from the sound 

Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 

All their green tops, stole over him and bowed 

His spirit with the thought of boundless power 

And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why 

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 

God's ancient sanctuaries and adore 

Only among the crowd and under roofs 

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least, 

Here in the shadow of this aged wood 

Offer one hymn — thrice happy if it find 

Acceptance in His ear. 

Father, thy hand 
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou 
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look 

down 
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, 
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 17 

And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow 

Whose birth was in their tops grew old and died 

Among their branches, till at last they stood 

As now they stand, massy and tall and dark, 

Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold 

Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, 

These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride 

Report not. No fantastic carvings show 

The boast of our vain race to change the form 

Of thy fair works. But thou art here — thou filPst 

The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 

That run along the summit of these trees 

In music; thou art in the cooler breath 

That from the inmost darkness of the place 

Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, 

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee. 

Here is continual worship; — Nature, here, 

In the tranquility that thou dost love, 

Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 

From perch to perch, the solitary bird 

Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, 

Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots 

Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 

Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 

Thyself without a witness, in the shades, 

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace 



18 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak — 

By whose immovable stem I stand and seem 

Almost annihilated — not a prince, 

In all that proud old world beyond the deep, 

E'er wore his crown as loftily as he 

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 

Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 

Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare 

Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, 

With scented breath and look so like a smile, ■ 

Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 

An emanation of the indwelling Life, 

A visible token of the upholding Love, 

That are the soul of this great universe. 

My heart is awed within me when I think 

Of the great miracle that still goes on, 

In silence, round me — the perpetual work 

Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 

Forever. Written on thy works I read 

The lesson of thy own eternity. 

Lo ! all grow old and die — but see again, 

How on the faltering footsteps of decay 

Youth presses — ever gay and beautiful youth 

In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees 

Wave not less proudly that their ancestors 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 19 

Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost 
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, 
After the flight of untold centuries, 
The freshness of her far beginning lies 
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate 
Of his arch-enemy Death — yea, seats himself 
Upon the tyrant's throne — the sepulchre, 
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth 
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 

There have been holy men who hid themselves 
Deep in the woody wilderness and gave 
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived 
The generation born with them, nor seemed 
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
Around them; — and there have been holy men 
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
But let me often to these solitudes 
Retire, and in thy presence reassure 
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, 
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink 
And tremble and are still. God! when thou 
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire 
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, 
With all the waters of the firmament, 



20 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 
And drowns the villages; w r hen at thy call 
Uprises the great deep and throw r s himself 
Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
Its cities — who forgets not, at the sight 
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
His pride, and lays his stripes and follies by? 
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face 
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath 
Of the mad unchained elements to teach 
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, 
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, 
And to the beautiful order of thy works 
Learn to conform the order of our lives. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

The grave and dignified philosopher, Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, shows in his poetry something of the serious 
dignity which distinguishes his prose. His subjects are 
never trivial; his treatment of them is always worthy. 
He writes of nature, of philosophy, of classic lore, of his- 
toric events, of the poetic gift, of his own sorrows. In 
nothing that he writes in poetry is there a note of ecstatic 
joy or profound dejection. Though he may be thrilled 
by his enjoyment of the visible outdoor world, he still 
writes with something of meditative restraint. No poet 
has given a finer interpretation of what Nature can mean 
to a sensitive spirit; no one has more beautifully expressed 
personal grief. A good example of Emerson's nature 
poetry is "The Snow-Storm," which in subject matter 
may be compared with Whittier's description of the storm 
in "Snow-Bound." "The Rhodora" is another beautiful 
little descriptive poem; in this Emerson shows a deftness 
in selection of fit words for poetical effect and a melodious 
combination of words rarely attained by the poets of 
America. 

The "Concord Hymn," which contains the oft-quoted 
lines about the embattled farmers, represents Emerson's 
treatment of historical events. 

"Threnody" is Emerson's expression of grief at the loss 
of his five-year-old son. The son, Waldo, was the oldest 
child of his parents and was a special favorite of the 
friends of the family, especially the philosopher and 
nature-lover, Thoreau. Waldo died of scarlatina after an 
illness of only three days. At the end of this poem, Emer- 
son reaches a lofty height of resignation and belief in the 

21 



22 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Tightness of God's plan for the dearly loved little son. 
Though the poem may seem heavy at first reading, some- 
what more careful perusal will enable the reader to see 
why many people of good judgment consider this poem 
one of the finest in American literature. 

Some lovers of poetry consider that Emerson's poems 
are over-intellectual; they hold that Emerson's best work 
was his prose. It is quite true that more people read 
Emerson's prose than his poetry, but many critics now 
regard his poems as his best contributions to literature. 

Certainly the selections given in this volume are suffi- 
ciently simple in idea or beautiful in expression to arouse 
almost any one's interest in Emerson as a representative 
and leading American poet. 



THE SNOW-STORM 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

Come see the north wind's masonry. 

Out of an unseen quarry evermore 

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 

Curves his white bastions with projected roof 

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. 

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 

So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he 

For number or proportion. Mockingly, 

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; 

A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; 

Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 

Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate, 

A tapering turret overtops the work. 

23 



24 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

And when his hours are numbered, and the world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
The frolic architecture of the snow. 

THE RHODORA 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 
Made the black water with their beauty gay; 
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 
And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: 
Why thou wert there, rival of the rose, 
I never thought to ask, I never knew; 
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
The self-same Power that brought me here brought 
you. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 25 



CONCORD HYMN 

Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, 
April 19, 1836 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone, 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



26 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



FORBEARANCE 



Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? 

Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? 

At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? 

Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? 

And loved so well a high behavior, 

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 

Nobility more nobly to repay? 

0, be my friend, and teach me to be thine! 

THINE EYES STILL SHINED 

Thine eyes still shined for me, though far 

I lonely roved the land or sea: 
As I behold yon evening star, 

Which yet beholds not me. 

This morn I climbed the misty hill, 
And roamed the pastures through; 

How danced thy form before my path 
Amidst the deep-eyed dew! 

When the redbird spread his sable wing, 

And showed his side of flame; 
When the rosebud ripened to the rose, 

In both I read thy name. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 27 

THRENODY 

The South-wind brings 

Life, sunshine, and desire, 

And on every mount and meadow 

Breathes aromatic fire; 

But over the dead he has no power, 

The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; 

And, looking over the hills, I mourn 

The darling who shall not return. 

I see my empty house, 

I see my trees repair their boughs; 

And he, the wondrous child, 

Whose silver warble wild 

Outvalued every pulsing sound 

Within the air's cerulean round, — 

The hyacinthine boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was born, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day, — 

Has disappeared from the Day's eye; 

Far and wide she cannot find him; 

My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. 

Returned this day, the South-wind searches, 

And finds young pines and budding birches; 



28 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

But finds not the budding man; 
Nature, who lost, cannot remake him; 
Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; 
Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. 

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, 

0, whither tend thy feet? 

I had the right, few days ago, 

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know; 

How have I forfeited the right? 

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight? 

I hearken for thy household cheer, 

eloquent child! 

Whose voice, an equal messenger, 

Conveyed thy meaning mild. 

What though the pains and joys 

Whereof it spoke were toys 

Fitting his age and ken, 

Yet fairest dames and bearded men, 

Who heard the sweet request, 

So gentle, wise, and grave, 

Bended with joy to his behest, 

And let the world's affairs go by, 

Awhile to share his cordial game, 

Or mend his wicker wagon-frame, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 29 

Still plotting how their hungry ear 
That winsome voice again might hear; 
For his lips could well pronounce 
Words that were persuasions. 

Gentlest guardians marked serene 
His early hope, his liberal mien; 
Took counsel from his guiding eyes 
To make this wisdom earthly wise. 
Ah, vainly do these eyes recall 
The school-march, each day's festival, 
When every morn my bosom glowed 
To watch the convoy on the road, 
The babe in willow wagon closed, 
With rolling eyes and face composed; 
With children forward and behind, 
Like Cupids studiously inclined; 
And he the chieftain paced beside, 
The centre of the troop allied, 
With sunny face of sweet repose, 
To guard the babe from fancied foes. 
The little captain innocent 
Took the eye with him as he went; 
Each village senior paused to scan 
And speak the lovely caravan. 
From the window I look out 



30 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

To mark thy beautiful parade, 
Stately marching in cap and coat, 
To some tune by fairies played; — 
A music heard by thee alone 
To works as noble led thee on. 

Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain, 

Up and down their glances strain. 

The painted sled stands where it stood; 

The kennel by the corded wood; 

His gathered sticks to stanch the wall 

Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall; 

The ominous hole he dug in the sand, 

And childhood's castles built or planned; 

His daily haunts I well discern, — 

The poultry yard, the shed, the barn, — 

And every inch of garden ground 

Paced by the blessed feet around, 

From the roadside to the brook 

Whereinto he loved to look. 

Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged; 

The wintry garden lies unchanged; 

The brook into the stream runs on; 

But the deep-eyed boy is gone. 

On that shaded day, 

Dark with more clouds than tempests are, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 31 

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath 

In birdlike heavings unto death, 

Night came, and Nature had not thee; 

I said, "We are mates in misery." 

The morrow dawned with needless glow; 

Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow; 

Each tramper started; but the feet 

Of the most beautiful and sweet 

Of human youth had left the hill 

And garden, — they were bound and still. 

There's not a sparrow or a wren, 

There's not a blade of autumn grain, 

Which the four seasons do not tend 

And tides of life and increase lend; 

And every chick of every bird, 

And weed and rock-moss is preferred. 

ostrich-like f orgetf ulness ! 
O loss of larger in the less ! 
Was there no star that could be sent, 
No watcher in the firmament, 
No angel from the countless host 
That loiters round the crystal coast, 
Could stoop to heal that only child, 
Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, 
And keep the blossom of the earth, 



32 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Which all her harvests were not worth? 

Not mine, — I never called thee mine, 

But Nature's heir, — if I repine, 

And seeing rashly torn and moved 

Not what I made, but what I loved, 

Grow early old with grief that thou 

Must to the wastes of Nature go, — ■ 

'Tis because a general hope 

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope. 

For flattering planets seemed to say 

This child should ills of ages stay, 

By wondrous tongue, and guided pen, 

Bring the flown Muses back to men. 

Perchance not he but Nature ailed, 

The world and not the infant failed. 

It was not ripe yet to sustain 

A genius of so fine a strain, 

Who gazed upon the sun and moon 

As if he came unto his own, 

And, pregnant with his grander thought, 

Brought the old order into doubt. 

His beauty once their beauty tried; 

They could not feed him, and he died, 

And wandered backward as in scorn, 

To wait an seon to be born, 

111 day which made this beauty waste, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 33 

Plight broken, this high face defaced! 
Some went and came about the dead; 
And some in books of solace read; 
Some to their friends the tidings say; 
Some went to write, some went to pray; 
One tarried here, there hurried one; 
But their heart abode with none. 
Covetous death bereaved us all, 
To aggrandize one funeral. 
The eager fate which carried thee 
Took the largest part of me : 
For this losing is true dying; 
This is lordly man's down-lying, 
This his slow but sure reclining, 
Star by star his world resigning. 

child of paradise, 

Boy who made dear his father's home, 

In whose deep eyes 

Men read the welfare of the times to come, 

1 am too much bereft. 

The world dishonored thou hast left. 
O truth's and nature's costly lie! 
O trusted broken prophecy! 
O richest fortune sourly crossed! 
Born for the future, to the future lost! 



34 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

The deep Heart answered, "Weepest thou? 

Worthier cause for passion wild 

If I had not taken the child. 

And deemest thou as those who pore, 

With aged eyes, short way before, — 

Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast 

Of matter, and thy darling lost? 

Taught he not thee — the man of eld 

Whose eyes within his eyes beheld 

Heaven's numerous hierarchy span 

The mystic gulf from God to man? 

To be alone wilt thou begin 

When worlds of lovers hem thee in? 

To-morrow, when the masks shall fall 

That dizen Nature's carnival, 

The pure shall see by their own will, 

Which overflowing Love shall fill, 

'Tis not within the force of fate 

The fate-conjoined to separate. 

But thou, my votary, weepest thou? 

I gave thee sight — where is it now? 

I taught thy heart beyond the reach 

Of ritual, bible, or of speech; 

Wrote in thy mind's transparent table, 

As far as the incommunicable; 

Taught thee each private sign to raise 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 35 

Lit by the supersolar blaze. 

Past utterance, and past belief, 

And past the blasphemy of grief, 

The mysteries of Nature's heart; 

And though no Muse can these impart, 

Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, 

And all is clear from east to west. 

'I came to thee as to a friend; 
Dearest, to thee I did not send 
Tutors, but a joyful eye, 
Innocence that matched the sky, 
Lovely locks, a form of wonder, 
Laughter rich as woodland thunder, 
That thou might'st entertain apart 
The richest flowering of all art : 
And, as the great all-loving Day 
Through smallest chambers takes its way, 
That thou might'st break thy daily bread 
With prophet, savior, and head; 
That thou might'st cherish for thine own 
The riches of sweet Mary's son, 
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon. 
And thoughtest thou such guest 
Would in thy hall take up his rest? 
Would rushing life forget her laws, 



36 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Fate's glowing revolution pause? 
High omens ask diviner guess; 
Not to be conned to tediousness. 
And know my higher gifts unbind 
The zone that girds the incarnate mind. 
When the scanty shores are full 
With Thought's perilous, whirling pool; 
When frail Nature can no more, 
Then the Spirit strikes the hour: 
My servant, Death, with solving rite, 
Pours finite into infinite. 

" Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, 

Whose streams through Nature circling go? 

Nail the wild star to its track 

On the half-climbed zodiac? 

Light is light which radiates, 

Blood is blood which circulates, 

Life is life which generates, 

And many-seeming life is one, — 

Wilt thou transfix and make it none? 

Its onward force too starkly pent 

In figure, bone, and lineament? 

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, 

Talker! the unreplying Fate? 

Nor see the genius of the whole 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 37 

Ascendant in the private soul, 

Beckon it when to go and come, 

Self-announced its hour of doom? 

Fair the souPs recess and shrine, 

Magic-built to last a season; 

Masterpiece of love benign, 

Fairer that expansive reason 

Whose omen 'tis, and sign. 

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know 

What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? 

Verdict which accumulates 

From lengthening scroll of human fates, 

Voice of earth to earth returned, 

Prayers of saints that inly burned, — 

Saying, What is excellent, 

As God lives, is permanent; 

Hearts are dust, hearts 7 loves remain; 

Hearts love will meet thee again. 

Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye 

Up to his style, and manners of the sky. 

Not of adamant and gold 

Built he heaven stark and cold; 

No, but a nest of bending reeds, 

Flowering grass and scented weeds; 

Or like a traveler's fleeing tent, 

Or bow above the tempest bent; 



38 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Built of tears and sacred flames, 
And virtue reaching to its aims; 
Built of furtherance and pursuing, 
Not of spent deeds, but of doing. 
Silent rushes the swift Lord 
Through ruined systems still restored, 
Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless, 
Plants with worlds the wilderness; 
Waters with tears of ancient sorrow 
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. 
House and tenant go to ground, 
Lost in God, in Godhead found." 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

There have been several bright humorists among the 
poets of America, but never any one keener in the enjoy- 
ment of joking in verse than Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 
his humorous pieces he has a dry, quizzical air that is 
decidedly pleasing to young and old. His humor is not so 
remote as to be hidden from the youthful reader nor so 
obvious as to be distasteful to older people. Enjoying his 
verse-making as a diversion rather than engaging in it to 
make a living, Holmes shows in all his humorous pieces 
the frolicsome spirit of a youth out for a holiday. As an 
example of this phase of Holmes's poetry, the general 
favorite, "The Deacon's Masterpiece, or, The Wonderful 
'One-hoss Shay'," should be read. Special attention, too, 
should be given to "The Boys/' which was one of the 
"Poems of the Class of '29/' Holmes's class in college. 
Each year when the class came together, Holmes wrote a 
poem for the reunion. Perhaps the best of all is "The 
Boys," which should surely be read to supplement the 
poems of this collection. 

Holmes had a great and continually growing interest in 
poetry while he was performing his duties as professor of 
anatomy and physiology at Harvard College from 1847 to 
1882. As early as 1852 he delivered a series of lectures on 
the poets of the nineteenth century. He read and appre- 
ciated poetry for many years while he was entertaining 
an ever growing circle by his own poetic productions. 
After the success of his essays entitled "The Autocrat of 
the Breakfast Table 7 ' in The Atlantic Monthly, about 
1858, he became really a man of letters rather than a 
physician or a professor. 

Some of Holmes's work ranks with the best serious 

39 



40 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

poetry in our language. Just after graduation from Har- 
vard he wrote a lyric, "Old Ironsides/ ' about the frigate 
Constitution which the navy department intended to 
destroy; the poem caused the navy department to rescind 
the order and save the ship. "The Chambered Nautilus" 
and "The Flower of Liberty" are little masterpieces. 
"The Last Leaf" is a remarkably felicitous combination 
of pathos and humor, so that it especially well illustrates 
both phases of Holmes's graceful art as a poet. During 
the last year of his life, when the publishers were bringing 
out a new edition of his works, Holmes wrote, regarding 
"The Last Leaf," as follows: "I am pleased to find that 
this poem, carrying with it the marks of having been 
written in the jocund morning of life, is still read and 
cared for. It was with a smile on my lips that I wrote it; 
I cannot read it without a sigh of tender remembrance. 
I hope it will not sadden my older readers, while it may 
amuse some of the younger ones to whom its experiences 
are as yet only floating fancies." 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; 

OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" 

A Logical Story 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 

That was built in such a logical way 

It ran a hundred years to a day, 

And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 

I'll tell you what happened without delay, 

Scaring the parson into fits, 

Frightening people out of their wits, — 

Have you ever heard of that, I say? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, 

Georgius Secondus was then alive, — 

Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 

That was the year when Lisbon town 

Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 

And Braddock's army was done so brown, 

Left without a scalp to its crown. 

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 

That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 

41 



42 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what 

There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — 

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, 

Find it somewhere you must and will, — 

Above or below, or within or without, — 

And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, 

That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell you/') 
He would build one shay to beat the taown 
V the keounty V all the kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: 
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, is only jest 
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 

Where he could find the strongest oak, 

That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills; 

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 43 

The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, 

But lasts like iron for things like these; 

The hubs of logs from the " Settler's ellum," — 

Last of its timber, — they couldn't sell 'em, 

Never an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue; 

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he "put her through/' — 

"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" 

Do! I tell you, I rather guess 

She was a wonder, and nothing less! 

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 

Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 

Children and grandchildren — where were they? 

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day! 

Eighteen Hundred; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 



44 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Eighteen hundred increased by ten; — 
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; — 
Running as usual; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then came fifty, and Fifty-Five. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large; 

Take it. — You're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

First of November, — the Earthquake day — 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay, 
But nothing local, as one may say. 
There couldn't be, — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there wasn't a chance for one to start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 45 

And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be worn out! 



First of November, 'Fifty-five! 
This morning the parson takes a drive. 
Now, small boys, get out of the way! 
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
"Huddup!" said the parson. — Off went they. 
The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
At what the — Moses — was coming next. 
All at once the horse stood still, 
Close by the meetV-house on the hill. 

— First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
Then something decidedly like a spill, — 
And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 

At half past nine by the meetV-house clock, ■ — 
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! 

— What do you think the parson found, 
When he got up and stared around? 
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
As if it had been to the mill and ground! 



46 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, 
How it went to pieces all at once, — 
All at once, and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
Logic is logic. That's all I say. 



OLD IRONSIDES 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 
Where knelt the vanquished foe, 

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 
And waves were white below, 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 47 

No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee; 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea! 

0, better that her shattered hulk 
, Should sink beneath the wave; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale! 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 



48 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Its web of living gauze no more unfurl; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old 
no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by 
thee, 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice 
that sings : — 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 49 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low- vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. 

THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY 

What flower is this that greets the morn, 
Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? 
With burning star and flaming band 
It kindles all the sunset land : 
O tell us what its name may be, — 
Is this the Flower of Liberty? 

It is the banner of the free, 

The starry Flower of Liberty! 

In savage Nature's far abode 

Its tender seed our fathers sowed; 

The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, 

Its opening leaves were streaked with blood, 

Till lo ! earth's tyrants shook to see 

The full-blown Flower of Liberty! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 

The starry Flower of Liberty! 



50 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Behold its streaming rays unite, 

One mingling flood of braided light, — 

The red that fires the Southern rose, 

With spotless white from Northern snows, 

And, spangled o'er its azure, see 

The sister Stars of Liberty! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty! 

The blades of heroes fence it round, 
Where'er it springs is holy ground; 
From tower and dome its glories spread, 
It waves where lonely sentries tread; 
It makes the land as ocean free, 
And plants an empire on the sea! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty! 

Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower, 
Shall ever float on dome and tower, 
To all their heavenly colors true, 
In blackening frost or crimson dew, — 
And God love us as we love thee, 
Thrice holy Flower of Liberty! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty! 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 51 



THE LAST LEAF 

I saw him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound, 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

"They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 



52 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow; 

But now his nose is thin 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer! 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 53 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



WALT WHITMAN 

People of good judgment have various opinions about 
Walt Whitman's poetry. Some think that he was not a 
poet, but a prose writer who put his prose into a form like 
that of poetry by beginning a part of a sentence here and 
there with a capital letter and arranging the parts as if 
they were lines of poetry. These severe critics of Whit- 
man's writings say that most of it lacks the fundamental 
requirement of poetry because the measure is roughly 
irregular or else not poetical measure in any respect; that 
it does not follow any rhythmical plan. They charge that 
Whitman's language lacks poetic tone, that he is limited 
in his range of ideas, that he is egotistical, that he is 
essentially common. 

There are, on the other hand, numerous lovers of good 
literature who rank Whitman high as a poet. Some even 
consider him the greatest American poet. Such champions 
of Whitman assert that he voices, better than any other 
American poet, a certain great and noble-minded way of 
looking for the best in everything and hoping for the best. 
Such defenders of Whitman say that among American 
poets he is the fairest representative of true democracy 
or equality among men. They praise his frank utterance 
of commonplaces of observation in the language of the 
common folk. They admire him for his championship of 
the cause of the laboring man and for having had the 
courage to don overalls and work with his hands. They 
like his irregularities of verse formation. They point to 
his own words in Leaves of Grass as his best justification: 

"This is no book, 
Who touches this, touches a man." 

55 



[)0 WALT WHITMAN 

To such admirers Whitman seems truly noble in his 
elemental simplicity and rugged in his disregard of con- 
ventional forms of poetry. Emerson wrote a letter to 
Whitman in which he called Leaves of Grass "the most 
extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has 
yet contributed. " 

Judgment in general now inclines to the views of the 
second group. Although deploring the deliberate rough- 
nesses and crudities in which Whitman seems to glory, the 
majority of critics rank him high as a poet. Whitman 
may reasonably be said to get down to the roots of poetic 
feeling and to express in appropriate and significant 
language the vigorous, buffeting thoughts which surged 
through his democratic soul. 

As representative of his achievements in poetry,, I have 
selected examples of his more regular versification con- 
forming tolerably well with the usual rhythmic structure 
of poetry and at the same time illustrating his distinctive 
poetic feeling. Probably Whitman's poem on Lincoln, 
"0 Captain! My Captain I" is the best tribute ever 
written to that great leader. 

In reading the characteristic poem, "When Lilacs Last 
in the Door- Yard Bloomed/ ' the student will do well first 
to look through sections X, XX, and XXI, which give the 
underlying idea of the poem. 



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we 

sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all 

exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim 
and daring; 

But heart: heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the 

bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you 

the shores acrowding, 

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager 

faces turning; 

Here, Captain! dear father! 

This arm beneath your head! 

It is some dream that on the deck 

You've fallen cold and dead. 
57 



58 WALT WHITMAN 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and 

still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor 

will, 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage 

closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object 
won; 

Exult, shores, and ring, bells! 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY 
A. L. Buried April 19, 1865 

Hush'd be the camps to-day; 
And soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons; 
And each, with musing soul retire, to celebrate, 
Our dear commander's death. 

No more for him life's stormy conflicts; 

Nor victory, nor defeat — No more time's dark 

events, 
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 



WALT WHITMAN 59 

But sing, poet, in our name; 
Sing of the love we bore him — because you, dweller 
in camps, know it truly. 

Sing, to the lowered coffin there; 

Sing, with the shovePd clods that fill the grave — a 

verse, 
For the heavy hearts of soldiers. 



WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOOR-YARD 
BLOOMED 



When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed, 

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in 

the night, 
I mourn'd — and yet shall mourn with ever-returning 

spring. 

II 

powerful, western, fallen star! 
shades of night! moody, tearful night! 
O great star disappeared! the black murk that 
hides the star! 



GO WALT WHITMAN 

O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless 

soul of me! 
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul ! 

Ill 

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near 
the white-washed palings, 

Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart- 
shaped leaves of rich green, 

With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with 
the perfume strong I love, 

With every leaf a miracle . . . and from this bush 
in the door-yard, 

With its delicate-colored blossoms, and heart-shaped 
leaves of rich green, 

A sprig, with its flower, I break. 

IV 

In the swamp in secluded recesses, 

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. 

Solitary, the thrush, 

The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the 

settlements, 
Sings by himself a song. 
Song of the bleeding throat! 



WALT WHITMAN 61 

Death's outlet song of life — (for well, dear brother, 

I know, 
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would'st surely 

die.) 



Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, 
Amid lanes, and through old woods (where lately the 

violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the 

gray debris) ; 
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes — 

passing the endless grass; 
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in 

the orchards; 
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the 

grave, 
Night and day journeys a coffin. 

VI 

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 

Through day and night, with the great cloud darken- 
ing the land, 

With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities 
draped in black, 

With the show of the States themselves, as of crape- 
veiFd women, standing, 



62 WALT WHITMAN 

With processions long and winding, and the flam- 
beaus of the night, 

With the countless torches lit — with the silent sea 
of faces, and the unbared heads, 

With the wailing depot, the arriving coffin, and the 
sombre faces, 

With dirges through the night, with the thousand 
voices rising strong and solemn; 

With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour'd 
around the coffin, 

The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs — 
Where amid these you journey, 

With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang; 

Here! coffin that slowly passes, 

I give you my sprig of lilac. 

VII 

(Nor for you, for one, alone; 

Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring: 
For fresh as the morning — thus would I chant a 
song for you, sane and sacred death. 

All over bouquets of roses, 

death! I cover you over with roses and early 

lilies; 
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, 



WALT WHITMAN 63 

Copious, I break. I break the sprigs from the 

bushes : 
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, 
For you and the coffins all of you, death.) 

VIII 

O western orb, sailing the heaven! 

Now I know what you must have meant, as a month 

since we walk'd, 
As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so 

mystic, 
As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy 

night, 
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to 

me night after night, 
As you droop' d from the sky low down, as if to my 

side, (while the other stars all look'd on;) 
As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for 

something I know not what, kept me from 

sleep;) 
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of 

the west, ere you went, how full you were of 

woe; 
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the 

cool transparent night, 



64 WALT WHITMAN 

As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the 

netherward black of the night, 
As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where 

you, sad orb, 
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. 

IX 

Sing on, there in the swamp! 

singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes — 

I hear your call; 

1 hear — I come presently — I understand you; 
But a moment I linger — for the lustrous star has 

detained me; 
The star, my comrade, departing, holds and detains 
me. 

X 

how shall I warble myself for the dead one there 

I loved? 
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet 

soul that has gone! 
And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him 

I love? 

Sea-winds, blown from east and west, 
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the 
western sea, till there on the prairies meeting: 



WALT WHITMAN 65 

These, and with these, and the breath of my 

chant, 
I perfume the grave of him I love. 

XI 

what shall I hang on the chamber walls? 

And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the 

walls, 
To adorn the burial-house of him I love? 

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes, 
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the 

gray-smoke lucid and bright, 
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, in- 
dolent, sinking sun, burning, expending the 

air; 
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the 

pale green leaves of the trees prolific; 
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the 

river, with a wind-dapple here and there; 
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line 

against the sky, and shadows; 
And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and 

stacks of chimneys, 
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and 

the workmen homeward returning. 



66 WALT WHITMAN 

XII 

Lo! body and soul! this land! 

Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling 

and hurrying tides, and the ships; 
The varied and ample land — the South and the 

North in the light — Ohio's shores, and flashing 

Missouri, 
And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with 

grass and corn. 

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty; 
The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes: 
The gentle, soft-born, measureless light; 
The miracle, spreading, bathing all — the fulfilPd 

noon; 
The coming eve, delicious — the welcome night, and 

the stars, 
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. 

XIII 

Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird! 

Sing from the swamps, the recesses — pour your 

chant from the bushes; 
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and 

pines. 



WALT WHITMAN 67 

Sing on, dearest brother — warble your reedy 

song; 
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. 

O liquid, and free, and tender! 

O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer! 

You only I hear — yet the star holds me, (but I will 

soon depart;) 
Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me. 

XIV 

Now while I sat in the day, and look'd forth, 

In the close of the day, with its light, and the 

fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his 

crops, 
In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with 

its lakes and forests, 
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturbed 

winds, and the storms;) 
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift 

passing, and the voices of children and women, 
The many-moving sea-tides, — and I saw the ships 

how they saird 
And the summer approaching with richness, and the 

fields all busy with labor, 



68 WALT WHITMAN 

And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, 
each with its meals and minutia of daily usages; 

And the streets, how their throbbings throbb'd, and 
the cities pent, — lo ! then and there, 

Falling among them all, and upon them all, — en- 
veloping me with the rest, 

Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail; 

And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred 
knowledge of death. 

XV 

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one 

side of me, 
And the thought of death close-walking the other 

side of me, 
And I in the middle, as with companions, and as 

holding the hands of companions, 
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not, 
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the 

swamp in the dimness, 
To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so 

still. 

And the singer so shy to the rest received me; 
The gray-brown bird I know, received us comrades 
three; 



WALT WHITMAN 69 

And he sang what seem'd the song of death, and a 

verse for him I love. 
From deep secluded recesses, 
From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so 

still, 
Came the singing of the bird. 

And the charm of the singing rapt me, 

As I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the 

night; 
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the 

bird. 

XVI 

Come, lovely and soothing Death, 
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriv- 
ing, 
In the day, in the night, to all, to each 
Sooner or later, delicate Death. 

Prais'd be the fathomless universe, 

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge 

curious; 
And for love, sweet love — But praise! O praise and 

praise, 
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding 

Death. 



70 WALT WHITMAN 

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, 

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest wel- 
come? 

Then I chant it for thee — I glorify thee above all; 

I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed 
come, come unfalteringly. 

Approach, encompassing Death — strong Deliveress! 
When it is so — when thou hast taken them, I joy- 
ously sing the dead, 
Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, 
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, Death. 

From me to thee glad serenades, 

Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee — adorn- 
ments and f eastings for thee; 

And the sights of the open landscape, and the high- 
spread sky, are fitting, 

And the life and the fields and the huge and thought- 
ful night. 

The night, in silence, under many a star; 

The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, 

whose voice I know; 
And the soul turning to thee, vast and well-veil'd 

Death, 
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee, 



WALT WHITMAN 71 

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! 

Over the rising and sinking waves — over the 

myriad fields, and the prairies wide; 
Over the dense-pack'd cities all, and the teeming 

wharves and ways, 
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, Death! 

XVII 

To the tally of my soul, 

Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, 
With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the 
night. 

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, 

Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume; 

And I with my comrades there in the night. 

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 

As to long panoramas of visions. 

XVIII 

I saw the vision of armies; 

And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of 

battle-flags; 
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc'd 

with missiles, I saw them, 



72 WALT WHITMAN 

And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and 

torn and bloody; 
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and 

all in silence,) 
And the staffs all splintered and broken. 

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, 

And the white skeletons of young men — I saw 

them; 
I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers; 
But I saw they were not as was thought; 
They themselves were fully at rest — they suffered 

not; 
The living remain'd and suffer'd — the mother 

suffered, 
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade 

suffered, 
And the armies that remained suffer'd. 

XIX 

Passing the visions, passing the night; 

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands; 

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying 

song of my soul, 
Victorious song, death's outlet song, (yet varying, 

ever-altering song, 



WALT WHITMAN ' 

As low and wailing, ye: hear ~:^ no:es rising 

:. lling z : : .ling :he nigh: 
5l ily sinking ;__.". :.::::.. as vraming and warning 

and yet : g; in bursting with : y 
Covering the earth mi hking :he spread ::' the 

irnn 
As thai powerful psalm in the right I heard from 

recesses. 

XX 

Must I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leavesl 
Must I leave thee there in the ioor-ya: . ::1: :ming 
returning with springi 

Musi I pass Cram my song foi thee 

J: ;n; my gi ze :>n :hee in :ne vres: h :>n:ing the west 

: : nnmnning ~ r\\ thee 
\ :::n:: ude lustrous with silver face in :he nigh:" 

XXI 

Yet 09 A I kee| : ad a D 

The song the "::.:":;:- hnant ::' the _: ;- : 

:::'. 1 kee{ 
An tallying e :'_'.: arous :ul, 

I hee:: 
th the lustrous v 
con:." full I w : - 



74 WALT WHITMAN 

With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering 
odor; 

Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their mem- 
ory ever I keep — for the dead I loved so well; 

For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and 
lands — and this for his dear sake; 

Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my 
soul, 

With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call 
of the bird, 

There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and 
dim. 



LIST OF POEMS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY 
READING 



POE 



Lenore 
The Bells 
Annabel Lee 
A Valentine 



To My Mother 

Eulalie 

Tamerlane 



LONGFELLOW 



A Psalm of Life 

The Reaper and the 

Flowers 
The Wreck of the Hesperus 
The Village Blacksmith 
The Rainy Day 
Excelsior 
The Slave's Dream 



The Arrow and the Song 
Evangeline 

The Building of the Ship 
The Song of Hiawatha 
Paul Revere's Ride 
King Robert of Sicily 
Sonnet on Chaucer 
The Children's Hour 



WHITTIER 



The Ajigels of Buena Vista 
Maud Muller 
Skipper Ireson's Ride 
The Frost Spirit 
The Mayflowers 
To My Old Schoolmaster 
Our Autocrat (Holmes) 
The Poet and the Children 

(Longfellow) 
A Welcome to Lowell 



Centennial Hymn 

The Wreck of Rivermouth 

Toussaint L'Ouverture 

The Slave-Ships 

The Panorama 

Barbara Frietchie 

The Peace Convention at 

Brussels 
In School-Days 



75 



76 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



BRYANT 



The Yellow Violet 
The Cost of a Pleasure 
The West Wind 
A Walk at Sunset 
March, June, November 
Monument Mountain 



Song of Marion's Men 
The Fifth Book of Homer's 

Odyssey (translated) 
The Winds 
Our Country's Call 
Stella 



Hymn to the North Star Robert of Lincoln 



EMERSON 



To Rhea 

Alphonso of Castile 

The Humble-Bee 

Compensation 

Holidays 

May-Day 

Freedom 



Boston Hymn 

Nature 

The Romany Girl 

Song of Nature 

Two Rivers 

April 

Friendship 



HOLMES 



Dorothy Q., A Family Por- 
trait 

The Cambridge Church- 
yard 

The Comet 

Lexington 

The Morning Visit 

The Ploughman 

Spring 

The Bells 

Contentment 

The Old Player 



Grandmother's Story of 

Bunker Hill Battle 
Parson Turell's Legacy, or, 

The President's Old Arm- 

Chair 
The Broomstick Train 
Hymn of Trust 
God Save the Flag! 
Under the Washington 

Elm, Cambridge 
No Time Like the Old Time 
The Boys 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



77 



WHITMAN 



Election Day, November, 

1884 
Washington's Monument 

February, 1885 
A Prairie Sunset 
Now Precedent Songs, 

Farewell 
How Solemn as One by One 

(A short description of 

soldiers returning from 

the war.) 



Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 
(A poem packed with 
specific observations of 
common things.) 

Poems of Joy 

Mannahatta 

Give Me the Splendid Silent 
Sun 



NOV 25 I9J3 



ABERNETHTS 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, PU.D. 
Formerly Principal of Berkeley Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

514 pages, 12mo t cloth. Price $1.10 

The author* s long and conspicuously successful experience 
as a teacher and the time and thought he has devoted to the 
work encourage us to believe that this book will be particularly 
adapted to the varying needs of his fellow teachers. 

The plan of the book includes a brief account of the growth 
of our literature considered as part of our national history, with 
such biographical and critical material as will best make the 
first-hand study of American authors interesting and profitable. 

One of the most interesting features of the book is the supple- 
menting of the author's critical estimates of the value of the 
work of the more important American writers with opinion*" 
quoted from contemporary sources. Other strong points ar« 
the attention given to more recent contributions to American 
literature and the fact that Southern literature is accorded a 
consideration commensurate with its interest and value. 

The pedagogical merit of the book is indicated by the care 
which has been given to the production of a teaching apparatus 
which is at once simple and entirely adequate. At the end of 
each chapter, two lists of selections are provided for each im- 
portant author, one for critical study, the other for outside 
reading. Lists of reading material for the historical back- 
ground also are given. Study along the lines indicated will lead 
to a closer correlation of history and literature than is usually 
secured, and to a more just appreciation of the literature. 

The books included in the list at the end of the work con- 
stitute an ample and fairly complete library of biography and 
criticism for students of American literature. 

CHARLES W. KENT, M. A., Ph. D., Linden Kent 
Memorial School of English Literature, University of 
Virginia, writes: 

I am sufficiently pleased with Abernethy's American Litera- 
ture to adopt it for use in my class next session. This I have 
done after a careful examination of nearly all of the college 
text-books on American literature now on the market. 



MERRILL'S ENGLISH TEXTS 

COMPLETE EDITIONS 

For Uniform College Entrance Examinations 

Addison, Steele, and Budgell — The Sir 
Roger de Coverley Papers in The 

Spectator" 30 cents 

Browning — Poems (Selected) 25 cents 

Bunyan — Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1 40 cents 

Burke — Speech on Conciliation with 

America , 25 cents 

Byron — Childe Harold, Canto IV, and 

The Prisoner of Chillon 25 cents 

Carlyle — An Essay on Burns 25 cents 

Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient 

Mariner, and other Poems 25 cents 

Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient 
Mariner, and Lowell — The Vision of 

Sir Launfal, Combined 40 cents 

Defoe — Robinson Crusoe, Part 1 50 cents 

DeQuincey — Joan of Arc, and The 

English Mail Coach • . . 25 cents 

Dickens — A Tale of Two Cities 50 cents 

Eliot, George — Silas Maimer 40 cents 

Emerson — Essays (Selected) 40 cents 

Goldsmith — The Deserted Village, and 

other Poems 25 cents 

Goldsmith— The Vicar of Wakefield 30 cents 

Gray — An Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard, and Goldsmith — The Deserted 

Village, Combined 30 cents 

Hale — The Man Without a Country, and 

My Double, and How He Undid Me 25 cents 
Hawthorne — The House of the Seven 

Gables 40 cents 



Homer — The Odyssey, Books VI to XIV, 

XVIII to XXIV (English translation) 40 cents 

Irving — The Sketch Book 50 cents 

Lamb — Essays of Elia 50 cents 

Lincoln — Selections 25 cents 

Lowell — The Vision of Sir Launfal, and 

other Poems 25 cents 

Macaulay — Essays on Lord Clive and 

Warren Hastings 40 cents 

Macaulay — Lays of Ancient Rome, and 

Arnold — Sohrab and Rustum, Combined SO cents 

Macaulay — The Life of Samuel Johnson 25 cents 
Milton — Lycidas, Comus, L' Allegro, II 

Penseroso, and other Poems 25 cents 

Palgrave — The Golden Treasury (First 

Series) 50 cents 

Parkman — The Oregon Trail 50 cents 

Poe — The Raven, Longfellow — The 

Courtship of Miles Standish, and 

Whittier — Snow Bound, Combined- . . 25 cents 

Scott — Ivanhoe 50 cents 

Scott — The Lady of the Lake 30 cents 

Shakespeare — A Midsummer Night's 

Dream 25 cents 

Shakespeare — As You Like It 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Julius Caesar 25 cents 

Shakespeare — King Henry V . 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Macbeth 25 cents 

Shakespeare — The Merchant of Venice- • 25 cents 

Shakespeare — Twelfth Night- 25 cents 

Stevenson — An Inland Voyage and 

Travels with a Donkey 40 cents 

Stevenson — Treasure Island 40 cents 

Tennyson — Idylls of the King 30 cents 

Thoreau — Walden c . . - - 50 cents 

Washington — Farewell Address, and 

Webster — First and Second Bunker 

Hill Orations 25 cents 



GRADED POETRY 

Edited by KATHERINE D. BLAKE 

Principal Girls' Department, Public School No. 6 

New York City 

AND 

GEORGIA ALEXANDER 

Supervising Principal, Indianapolis, Indiana 

7 Books. 96 pages each, 12mo, cloth 
PRICE PER VOLUME, 20 CENTS 

Poetry is the chosen language of childhood and youth. 
The baby repeats words again and again for the mere joy 
of their sound; the melody of nursery rhymes gives a 
delight which is quite independent of the meaning of the 
words. Not until youth approaches maturity is there 
an equal pleasure in the rounded periods of elegant prose. 
It is in childhood, therefore, that the young mind should 
be stored with poems whose rhythm will be a present de- 
light and whose beautiful thoughts will not lose their 
charm in later years. 

The selections for the lowest grades are addressed pri- 
marily to the feeling for verbal beauty, the recognition of 
which in the mind of the child is fundamental to the plan 
of this work. The editors have felt that the inclusion of 
critical notes in these little books intended for elementary 
school children would be not only superfluous, but, in the 
degree in which critical comment drew the child's atten- 
tion from the text, subversive of the desired result. Nor 
are there any notes on methods. The best way to teach 
children to love a poem is to read it inspiringly to them. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO., Publishers 
44-60 East Twenty-third Street, New York 



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